When Steve Harmison’s biography Speed demons was published a couple of years ago it was variously described as searing and brutal. I thought it was a bit more than searing – more like a red hot poker up the bottie. And not for the first time I found myself thinking, here’s another cricketer who had a miserable time flying around the world business class and being well paid for a sport he was supposed to love. But of course there is a lot more to it than that. I remember a period of sheer hell...
Last Orders For 50 Overs After The World Cup?
More obituaries have been written about cricket than after a lively night at Passchendaele. The latest doom-monger, Vic Marks, mourns the death of the 50 overs format, proclaiming it has been gunned down by the ECB’s much-anticipated new speed thrash. Apparently many one-dayers will be consigned to outgrounds and also overseas players are banned. And these are bad developments? I laughed so much reading these pearls of wisdom my false teeth would have went flying if I’d had any. The Royal...
The Spin, Issue 3
The first Lancashire fanzine for more than 25 years has proved to be a great success. Last week we published the third and final edition of the season and hope to reach more than 2,000 readers. Sales at Lancashire’s crunch game with Worcs at Southport were amazing. It’s been a hard road with a lot of mileage put in on a shoestring budget but the response has spurred us on when it would have been easy to get disheartened. The second issue required a second print run of 300 to meet demand...
ECB galacticos and the smell of BS
A group of supporters reformed the Lancashire Action Group late last year to lobby for better facilities at Old Trafford. An offshoot of that campaign has been a fanzine called not The Spin. It’s first edition sold 450 copies and now the second issue is about to hit the streets. Editor and FullToss contributor Barry Turner says the plan is to provide a voice for all fans in print – something he believes no one else is doing. In the new issue he takes a look at the ECB’s new 100 ball...
Lancashire Supporter Has Lifetime Membership Cancelled
Timothy St. Ather, a leading figure in a fans’ rebellion at Lancashire, has had his lifetime membership of the club cancelled, writes Barry Turner. St. Ather was sent a letter of dismissal along with a cheque for £1045, the amount he paid for lifetime members’ status more than 20 years ago. The move is seen as an attempt to quash the rebels at the Lancashire Action Group which is stirring up unrest over the poor treatment of fans and members. Mr St. Ather planned to bombard the...
Red Rose Rebellion
It seems that emotions are running high at Old Trafford. And it’s got nothing to do with Jos Buttler’s prediction that test cricket could be extinct (with T20 becoming the only form of the game) in twenty years’ time. Here’s Barry Turner, a Lancs fan through and through, with the latest developments. The members are certainly restless … Angry fans at Lancashire have formed a pressure group over growing unrest about facilities at Old Trafford. The grass-roots...
