Summer Sports - Cricket


important to Uxbridge Sports Club. It puts us on the map too.” “We pretty much know when the first class


“


fixtures are announced in November what our involvement will be. The club gets in touch and we discuss arrangements, with the emphasis on mutual convenience. Organising gets under way months in advance.” “We sit around the table and discuss every


Playing away from Lord’s was then, and still is I suppose, a kind of novelty for both players and spectators, and an enjoyable one


Dave Summersell, Head Groundsman at Uxbridge Sports Club


aspect of match management together, simply working out what is best for both clubs. There’s give and take on both sides. It just works and, after ten years or so now, we all know what we’re doing.” “Uxbridge Cricket Club has its own fixture


list to fulfill, of course, but we’re always willing to shift matches to make way for a county game. Every weekend across the summer months, the Uxbridge club has four sides in action, participating at different levels of the Middlesex County League, so a lot of cricket is regularly played on the pitches here. It’s a busy cricket ground; and Dave is a busy groundsman.” “We never quite know, from year to year, the actual extent of our involvement. In 2016, only a single T20 match for Middlesex was staged here. This year, we’re going to be much busier hosting Middlesex, and so is Dave.” “Health and safety has to be spot on, of


course, and Lorraine Poole, Event Operations Manager at Middlesex CCC, provides a detailed plan for each fixture the club plays here at Uxbridge. Together, we meet the Local Safety Advisory Group to discuss all the arrangements we have in place.” Weather permitting the T20 games are


The renovated square prior to seeding and topdressing


likely to attract an attendance of 3,000 plus, and championship match days could pull in up to 1,000, depending on the state of the game.” Uxbridge has, in recent years, reverted to individual ground seating rather than temporary stands, which gives it a more traditional outground appearance and feel. The Middlesex club provides all the manpower and resources for this. From a business point of view Anne is a big


fan of T20, as much as anything because, as she puts it: “It’s all done in a day. It’s neat and profitable. There’s much more uncertainty with the 4-day game. You don’t know about conditions from day to day, whether the game will last, and how many will come through the gates. We still love it though.” The cricket club’s association with the


current champion county goes back to 1980, Dave tells me. Lord’s was preparing to stage the Centenary Test and unable to host a county fixture for its tenants Middlesex. This was the first time since 1959 Lord’s hadn’t been able to put on a scheduled county fixture, when the ground at Hornsey in London’s Haringey stepped into the breach. This time, twenty-one seasons later, Uxbridge was invited to stage the game, he recalls This first Middlesex 1st team game at the


The strip Dave had ready for the last Middlesex 4-day game in June 2015 56 I PC APRIL/MAY 2017


ground was against Derbyshire. The county had already used Uxbridge for 2nd X1 matches, so county officials were aware of the quality of the playing conditions. It fared


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