v Yorkshire 376 all out
Gloucestershire 359 all out
Yorkshire 213 for 4
Yorkshire win by 6 Wickets
County Championship Division 1
Sunday 17 April 2022
Played at Bristol
A few hours after that efficient Yorkshire win, as we were celebrating, I was afforded the Honour Of The Chalk in the…
Drapers Arms
447 Gloucester Rd, Bristol BS7 8TZ
A lovely MicroPub "just up from the ground". A great shop front, single room affair. All the beers are on Gravity Cask. With the chiller jackets around them. Some casks already kicked. Some already racked & waiting to be next cab off the rank. Some casks performing no currently useful purpose as they just generally settled & waited their turn.
Nominally, the blackboard had seven listed. But, there was a bit of squad rotation as casks went off. And others came on.
The first inkling I had about the sort of place the Drapers Arms is came when the Beer Server marched to the board, erasing cloth in one hand, chalk in the other. I mean, you're pre-programmed right? Here we go. New. Beer. On.
Not this time beer nerds. The blackboard proudly displays the commitment to local beer. By displaying Beer Miles. But, the horror. One beer from Cheddar Ales had been chalked up as 21 miles, another as 23 miles. Now, that's either an unfeasibly long brewed. Or a fuck up. So, that needed changing.
I went…
Twisted Oak (North Somerset), Leverer, Gold IPA on Gravity Cask at 4.6%
Gloucester Brewery, Priory Pale, on Gravity Cask at 3.7%
And, the Outstanding Beer Of The Day…
Cheddar Ales, Lisa Likes Nelson, NZ Hopped Pilsner on Gravity Cask at 5%
Loved that. Cask Pilsner would be an acceptable description. But, more NZ very pale for me. Biscuit up the hooter. Some survives. Goes sugar. Floral in the end game, with just enough bitter.
As I bought the Priory Pale, I was handed the chalk and instructed to cross out the Cheddar Ales, Gorge Best, which had just gone off. What a welcoming place. Me. A complete stranger. Whose Cricket Bat team had just beaten the locals. Afforded the Honour Of The Chalk. Welled up, I did.
Much earlier in the day, I had the first exchange with a Home Team Member about the Rafiq & Racism fiasco. I doubt it'll be the last. It was simply triggered by me mentioning that Rob Key had just been announced in The Big Job. My new friend mentioned Hangers On. The number of support staff. Etcetera.
I explained Yorkshire's high turnover of staff & that I was struggling to put names to faces wearing tracksuits. Well. Matey then claimed to be a good friend of one of the Sacked Sixteen. Nothing to do with the issues raised. Wasn't around during the whole period. Lovely person, wouldn't do or say anything untoward. Career in ruins. Other people more culpable still at the club. Etcetera.
It's funny. Because, you'll never know exactly how these issues are going to come at you. I wanted to stay calm, not upset him. But to vigorously defend a position if I felt I had to.
I found myself dragging the simple…
"that's not how it played out"
defence into the game.
Of course, you can take a principled, forensic stance. This person was involved in that. That person was not involved in this. But, that's not how it played out. Yorkshire's income streams from Headingley naming rights, key sponsors, front-of-shirt sponsors, and crucially revenue from International Cricket DISAPPEARED overnight. That's how it played out. As YCCC spiralled out of control into a Toxic Brand.
Yorkshire had to then go back, cap in hand, to old sponsors, new sponsors, and the ECB with a piece of paper with words written on it. And, they had to guess what those words needed to say. I'm with Yorkshire, here's a detailed, forensic analysis of who said what, when. And why we decided to sack (and not sack) particular individuals. That would NOT cut it. No one would have been at Bristol this week if that's what we decided to write on the paper.
So. We had to write…
We've had a Clear Out.
That's how it played out.
And, finally, for completeness. The beer offering in the ground was…
Bath Ales, Gem, English Bitter at 4.1%
Mainly available on Keg. But, as bottles during interim periods. There was a Cask handle of it. But, that was never on during any of the four days as far as I could tell.
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