That time of year again; back to the old Asylum for the annual jolly of five days cricket. It rained all week. Not a ball bowled. I’d spent a bit of the winter sending missives about the sorry state of the ex patient’s cricket week. When I saw the fixtures for the ‘week’, there was marmalade on my kitchen walls. God, get a life. I wish I could.
We’ve been losing fixtures and struggling to field sides for a decade and in that time the asylum enterprise office are said to have made a fat buck staging concerts, fireworks, proms etc for the paying public on the pitch the weekend before cricket week.
There’s a suspicion that the enterprise office view ex patient’s cricket as a nuisance since they raise a big marquee for proms and want their lolly for it. The enterprise office are keen to venue the Close with big tent for corporate do’s and first class cricket. They’ve got the marquee for a week but they only use it for a few days. It comes down when ‘CW’starts.
You’ve got to give ‘em credit- the asylum enterprise office. They are doing a brilliant job. I got off the train at Temple Meads greeted by posters of ‘Leslie Garrett, a night of Proms on the Close’ everywhere, bloody everywhere. There are hopes of luring Gloucestershire back to the Close again (Grace got 12 hundreds there) and using the Prom as bait. Good luck to them- good luck on any week but cricket week that is.