I can still remember my first cricket bat. In a rush of enthusiasm my father bought it long before I even had the strength to lift it! Cricket was a game he was keen for me to appreciate. I grew up in a world that valued the place of cricket, seeing it as much more than just a sport. Cricket was regarded as the epitome of many fine qualities. M.A. Noble wrote how “it teaches honesty, appreciation, persistency, loyalty, enthusiasm, fair play, fighting spirit, self- control, unselfishness, and how to accept success and defeat.” – An impressive list. To be told at any time that something you had done “wasn’t cricket”, was a telling reprimand which stung your pride and made you re-evaluate your behaviour, as it implied you had acted dishonourably.
There is no doubt that cricket has slipped off such a pedestal. But should we just accept this as the reflection of an age with different standards? My appeal is to have a more idealistic outlook and to restore the enviable reputation cricket once had.
In buying that huge Len Hutton signed bat when I was still an infant, my father had a vision that I would embrace all the excellent qualities and enjoyment cricket had to offer. ‘Vision’ is a word often bandied around. With it can come an air of desperation, as people wonder where or how they might locate a vision that will enable them to develop some meaningful purpose or direction. But we don’t have to search anxiously for a new goal to appear over the horizon, or wait for an imported expert to reveal it to us. It is far more likely to be something of which we are already fully aware, but which we have never previously considered in such elevated terms. “Vision,” someone wisely said, “is the ability to see the opportunities within your current circumstances.”
My father’s vision, when he bought the bat, wasn’t some yet-to-be-defined hope or intention. It was, rather, his way of encouraging me to take advantage of an opportunity already present within my boyhood environment. The unmistakably wholesome spirit of cricket was there for me to own.
And this same vision lies at the foundations of The Willows through its commitment to keep alive the traditions of cricket. In so doing, the club stands for those things that make this sport the “mighty game” and “first of all sports” – to quote James Love’s poem of 1744. And the attributes mentioned by M.A. Noble, speaking of many splendid aspects of human character and relationships, are an inevitable outcome.