by firehazard Tue Aug 24, 2021 8:01 am
soulfinger wrote:I think County cricket has been written off so many times, it's hilarious. The crowds for county games are pitiful for the clubs in financial terms. Mostly older folk who are members (so get minimum price admission), bring their own food and drink and don't buy anything in the club shop. Bloody communists!
I'm no longer a member but may rejoin when I'm 65! As a kid, I knew a gateman at OT, so never paid to get in until I was 16, when I bought a junior membership. It's a pity, in the digital ticket age, that such advantageous terms are no longer available...
True. Essex have always tended to get comparatively good crowds and a large membership for what to be honest is a smaller county club. Though they used to get a lot more back in the days when they took the show on the road round the county and played at least half their matches on outgrounds. Those were the days. I started off being taken by the old man and the old lady back in the early 70s in the days of the 40-over Sunday league, to places like Ilford, Southend, Leyton, Harlow... and once I'd got my junior membership (annual birthday present) I spent much of the time when I wasn't at school (cough) following them round the county. I always intended, once I could afford it, to buy myself a life membership, but it always seemed to be just out of my reach. And one of the first of my lifetime's ambitions was to be "one of the old blokes who sit and watch the cricket". I gave up my membership, finally, when they stopped playing at Colchester, the last of those outgrounds, and focused everything on Chelmsford, which is an absolutely pit of a cricket ground that should've been demolished or properly redeveloped years ago.
But in the current climate, and especially if ECB resources are being pumped into promoting city-based franchises, it's hard to see the non-test-ground counties surviving in their present form.
[quote="soulfinger"]I think County cricket has been written off so many times, it's hilarious. The crowds for county games are pitiful for the clubs in financial terms. Mostly older folk who are members (so get minimum price admission), bring their own food and drink and don't buy anything in the club shop. Bloody communists!
I'm no longer a member but may rejoin when I'm 65! As a kid, I knew a gateman at OT, so never paid to get in until I was 16, when I bought a junior membership. It's a pity, in the digital ticket age, that such advantageous terms are no longer available...[/quote]
True. Essex have always tended to get comparatively good crowds and a large membership for what to be honest is a smaller county club. Though they used to get a lot more back in the days when they took the show on the road round the county and played at least half their matches on outgrounds. Those were the days. I started off being taken by the old man and the old lady back in the early 70s in the days of the 40-over Sunday league, to places like Ilford, Southend, Leyton, Harlow... and once I'd got my junior membership (annual birthday present) I spent much of the time when I wasn't at school (cough) following them round the county. I always intended, once I could afford it, to buy myself a life membership, but it always seemed to be just out of my reach. And one of the first of my lifetime's ambitions was to be "one of the old blokes who sit and watch the cricket". I gave up my membership, finally, when they stopped playing at Colchester, the last of those outgrounds, and focused everything on Chelmsford, which is an absolutely pit of a cricket ground that should've been demolished or properly redeveloped years ago.
But in the current climate, and especially if ECB resources are being pumped into promoting city-based franchises, it's hard to see the non-test-ground counties surviving in their present form.
