v Yorkshire 37 for none
County Championship Division 1
Close on Day One
Thursday 14 April 2022
Played at Bristol
Some spectator teething problems at Gloucestershire's first day at Bristol this season. (Due to logistics, we pitched up at Lunch). As far as I could tell, all tickets purchased on the gate are A4 print at home tickets. (That is they're not "ticket shaped"). And there's no credit card machine. Ticket Guy effectively goes on the internet, creates an account for you, takes your credit card off you & enters the details online, and prints your A4 ticket on a normal printer.
The WiFi, network, Bluetooth or whatever between his laptop & his printer clearly wasn't working properly. But, he decided to front it out.
"Oh sorry, you've just caught me at the wrong time, I was just sorting something else. It'll be a little wait for your tickets to be printed I'm afraid"
There then follows a period of time where fuck all happens. Double that.
And, obviously you then have to go to the next gate down and be scanned in. Scanner Guy waves his scanner thing all which ways. And, eventually, you're in.
I then briefly became a Cause Célèbre. Trying to audit every beer in every bar, (it's my "job"), I walked down the wrong corridor up the wrong stairs. The Steward (correctly) challenged me. I had no option.
"Sorry, no, I'm not a Gloucestershire Member, but I am a visiting Yorkshire Member."
He then radioed a colleague to ask if I was allowed up that bit. (I wasn't particularly trying to Blag in anyway). No. Came the answer. A little while later, another Steward marked "Manager" came to find me. (I didn't particularly want to be found). She wanted to explain to me that, unfortunately, there were no reciprocal arrangements for visiting Members. (I wasn't particularly looking for an explanation). And of course the "explanation" was a load of shit & didn't make sense.
How do we tie ourselves in these knots? I'd been stopped going into somewhere I wasn't trying to get in to. And then been tracked down for an explanation I didn't need. And, natch, dragged in against my instincts, because the explanation was pony.
"We don't have enough room"
"But, the ground's virtually empty & you're hosting International Cricket later this year."
The explanation included a promise that I shouldn't worry because, as Manager, she would brief all her Stewards on Day 2 to make sure that they were in NO DOUBT that Yorkshire Members should NOT be admitted into Member's areas. Well. That made me feel a whole heap more welcome. As you can imagine!!!
My suggestion that would take a good deal of effort & it'd much easier to just let visitors up those stairs, far less hassle for her, fell on a particularly uneven, broken wicket, with both footmarks & stones.
I'm not particularly proud of my parting shot.
"The next time Gloucestershire come to play at Headingley or Scarborough, I'm going to find & round up every Gloucestershire Member in the ground, personally invite & chaperone them into the Member's area, make sure they know they're welcome & show them a good time"
And … we move on … past these first day teething problems.
Bristol. Superb Beer Destination of course. We did;
Fierce & Noble
Taproom
25 Mina Rd, St Werburgh's, Bristol BS2 9TA
Piggledy. Higgledy place. The bar & indoor bit is all old wood & leather sofas. The half in, half out bit is among the Mashtuns & FVs. And then there's a Yard.
All their own beers. One on Cask. Six on Keg.
Fierce & Noble, Mocha Stout on Keg at 3.8%
End of a line. Old keg from the back of the yard. Whatever. They were trying to shift it. Two an' half English pounds. Pints only. No halves. Brewer's Surprise maybe?
Came up a bit flat. But, the coffee makes it all work. One of them where it tastes banging at first. Goes a bit ordinary. And comes again. Nice modern British Keg stout.
Fierce & Noble, Poppin, West Coast IPA on Keg at 5.5%
Nah. A bit thin and uninspiring. All citrus & doesn't really go anywhere else.
But, the Outstanding Beer Of The Day was;
Fierce & Noble, Homie, Galaxy Pale on Keg at 4%
More Bitter than juice. Brings out the Galaxy hop nicely.
A few ups & downs. But that was pretty much a Plan A Day for Yorkshire. Win the Toss. Put them in. Get them out in the day. None down at Close. Downs would be - 99 for 2. Ups would be - 183 for 8. And, down we go to 226 for 9.
The Fish took 4 for 19 off 14.1 Overs. Rauf was expensive, went for 81 at more than 5 an Over. But, he took two in two for the 5th & 6th wicket.
Lyth has hit the tenth ball for SIX. And the next for four. Aaarrrggghhh. There at the close though.
Twitter @ball_sup
www.twitter.com/ball_sup
Untappd ball_sup
Stats
I have now Blogged from 1,092 games in 2,795 days
No comments:
Post a Comment