Unpopular Opinions You Hold

[The People's Hero]

6 minutes ago, Clogger_ said:

I've been bowled out by people from all backgrounds. Black, white, rich, poor, male, female... They've all been too good for me! I don't discriminate 

One of the last games I played my mate was on 99 (I was batting at the other end and was on about 14 - but we'd opened together). He got caught at square leg with a bloke who had one arm. Oh and it was the rankest long hop I've ever seen. He also managed to get bowl by a woman twice (we only ever played teams who had lady players twice) and he got run out backing up at the non-strikers end twice in a weekend.

 

I was at the other end to witness most of it!

[The People's Hero]

11 minutes ago, The People's Hero said:

One of the last games I played my mate was on 99 (I was batting at the other end and was on about 14 - but we'd opened together). He got caught at square leg with a bloke who had one arm. Oh and it was the rankest long hop I've ever seen. He also managed to get bowl by a woman twice (we only ever played teams who had lady players twice) and he got run out backing up at the non-strikers end twice in a weekend.

 

I was at the other end to witness most of it!

I have some excellent cricketing stories; including when we were playing a timed game and I was trying to bat out for a draw. We were completely outclassed and I was covered in bruises having opened the batting.

 

Got to within about 4 overs of drawing the game and we were about 50/2 (I'm not even joking, we'd conceded about 350 and our innings would have been 90 minutes then 20 overs). I left a ball and it absolutely cartwheeled my off stump. Off I trudge to have a word with myself in the changing room and by the time I re-emerge we were 50/4. I think we were bowled out for 52.

 

One of their bowlers got 9 wickets I think and I was somewhere between annoyed and delighted in hindsight realising we'd had a ridiculous run out at some point, hence depriving that fella maybe his only ever chance of all 10.

 

The following week we played a side in the league whose opening bats had previously opened for Zimbabwe and their number 3 for Scotland. It was a shame I never got to see the Scottish fella bat!

 

 

[Corky]

6 hours ago, Voll Blau said:

I just dislike the self-importance of the place and, as mentioned, the types who turn up to games there. There was a lot of chat about how stewards were constantly having to retrieve champagne corks from the outfield over the past couple of days because it's seen as some kind of great lark to do it. Imagine the fury if that was lads cobbing plastic beer cups on to the pitch instead?

 

It's easily my least favourite of the six traditional Test grounds in England.

Too right. Oh look at the jolly japes of the guys chucking champagne corks around. Thank God they didn't do the beer snakes like the riff-raff!

[Daggers]

Building the beer snake is the single best thing about watching cricket.

[Clogger_]

 

47 minutes ago, The People's Hero said:

I have some excellent cricketing stories; including when we were playing a timed game and I was trying to bat out for a draw. We were completely outclassed and I was covered in bruises having opened the batting.

 

Got to within about 4 overs of drawing the game and we were about 50/2 (I'm not even joking, we'd conceded about 350 and our innings would have been 90 minutes then 20 overs). I left a ball and it absolutely cartwheeled my off stump. Off I trudge to have a word with myself in the changing room and by the time I re-emerge we were 50/4. I think we were bowled out for 52.

 

One of their bowlers got 9 wickets I think and I was somewhere between annoyed and delighted in hindsight realising we'd had a ridiculous run out at some point, hence depriving that fella maybe his only ever chance of all 10.

 

The following week we played a side in the league whose opening bats had previously opened for Zimbabwe and their number 3 for Scotland. It was a shame I never got to see the Scottish fella bat!

 

 

Genuinely egalitarian, is cricket. The one sport where you can rock up and get skittled in true "What the *bleep* happened there?" fashion. Only afterwards do you become aware that the opponents had an overseas semi-pro, or a young tyro in the England schoolboys! 

 

Beware the crafty elderly swing bowler! He was MUCH, MUCH better than you back in the day... 

[Guest Manini]

Not all that much relevance but Botham played footy for Scunthorpe in the winter and Gary Lineker could have quite easily played cricket for Leicestershire if he’d have chosen that route. I’m sure there are other examples - I think sport, certainly in the professional (playing) sense is a great class equaliser, certainly over the past 60 or so years, if not longer. If you’re good enough you will get an opportunity somewhere down the line - I’m sure that hasn’t always been the case but in modern times I believe it certainly is. 

[Phil Bowman]

3 hours ago, TrickyTrev Benjamin said:

Cricket in my opinion is the biggest middle class sport ever

I’m not denying that cricket has a big middle class element. But certainly in northern England at least it’s also a very traditionally working class sport.

[Voll Blau]

52 minutes ago, Manini said:

Not all that much relevance but Botham played footy for Scunthorpe in the winter and Gary Lineker could have quite easily played cricket for Leicestershire if he’d have chosen that route. I’m sure there are other examples - I think sport, certainly in the professional (playing) sense is a great class equaliser, certainly over the past 60 or so years, if not longer. If you’re good enough you will get an opportunity somewhere down the line - I’m sure that hasn’t always been the case but in modern times I believe it certainly is. 

Loads who played both before it became impossible due to scheduling. Graham Cross and Chris Balderstone at Leicestershire, for example. Gary Neville was also decent but it's reckoned Phil would have captained England if he'd picked cricket over football.

 

Joe Hart in recent times played county 2nd XI and opted to play a Birningham League game to avoid having to watch the England-Sweden quarter-final in 2018!

 

There is a huge issue with cricketers from state schools getting a chance in the pro game (not so much in the northern counties where it's still a more working class sport at all levels) but in my experience most teams I've played in have had a majority of players from working class backgrounds.

[Corky]

2 hours ago, Daggers said:

Building the beer snake is the single best thing about watching cricket.

England's top order batting line-up will turn teetotallers into pissheads at this rate.

[Carl the Llama]

8 hours ago, UpTheLeagueFox said:

Or how the country votes politically 

 

 

Encouraging something stupid by promising a lot of profit, then once the thing has been fully committed to with no way back the promised money evaporates into a technicality leaving nothing but the consequences of a very foolish endeavour?  Nothing could be more British.

Edited 16 August 2021 by Carl the Llama

[Jimothy]

8 hours ago, HighPeakFox said:

Why do you bother doing this, Djeffff? All it does is encourage someone with absolutely little self-awareness and knowledge.

How can he be encouraging himself?

[BoyJones]

5 hours ago, FoxesDeb said:

Why would anyone be offended by being called middle class? 

 

And since when has cricket been a 'white' sport? Unless you are referring to the clothes they wear? 

 

I am genuinely confused 

 

Fully agree.

 

I am a 69 year old white man. In the 80’s, my job was a bank manager, But I opened the batting for an Indian team in the local leagues. I was the only Gora in the team and probably the league. Got racist dogs abuse from the opposition, but loved every minute. Great banter with no malice intended.

 

Cricket has never been solely a white mans sport and anybody who tries to make capital out of saying it is, is a just a trouble maker trying to stoke up problems, 

 

Cricket unifies, where other sports don’t. Maybe in the 1880’s, cricket was the rich mans sport, but all through the twentieth century it has been played by the so called working class of all colours and creed. To say anything otherwise is totally wrong. 

[UpTheLeagueFox]

6 hours ago, Daggers said:

Building the beer snake is the single best thing about watching cricket.

There's always an element of drama when it gets massive.

[Jattdogg]

3 hours ago, BoyJones said:

Fully agree.

 

I am a 69 year old white man. In the 80’s, my job was a bank manager, But I opened the batting for an Indian team in the local leagues. I was the only Gora panchode in the team and probably the league. Got racist dogs abuse from the opposition, but loved every minute. Great banter with no malice intended.

 

Cricket has never been solely a white mans sport and anybody who tries to make capital out of saying it is, is a just a trouble maker trying to stoke up problems, 

 

Cricket unifies, where other sports don’t. Maybe in the 1880’s, cricket was the rich mans sport, but all through the twentieth century it has been played by the so called working class of all colours and creed. To say anything otherwise is totally wrong. 

Rough that! Lol

 

Cricket is not my cup of chai but even over here in Canada is played by pakistanis, indian, west indians, aussies etc together.  Pure passion of the game brings people together.

 

 

 

[Daggers]

9 hours ago, UpTheLeagueFox said:

There's always an element of drama when it gets massive.

 

[Finnegan]

You probably don't get to pretend your sport is a beacon of inclusiveness for all classes, races, creeds, etc when the vast majority of your elite level cricketers have been posh, white, public school boys pretty much forever. 

 

If everyone of all classes and backgrounds is playing it at grass roots level but your elite players come overwhelmingly from the same backgrounds then somewhere along the way there's a glass ceiling for some of them and you probably have an issue. 

 

It does seem that in this millennium the profile of an England national team cricketer has shifted a little, so clearly there has been some progress, but the team are still a long way short of representing the demographic of the country. 

[Voll Blau]

27 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

You probably don't get to pretend your sport is a beacon of inclusiveness for all classes, races, creeds, etc when the vast majority of your elite level cricketers have been posh, white, public school boys pretty much forever. 

 

If everyone of all classes and backgrounds is playing it at grass roots level but your elite players come overwhelmingly from the same backgrounds then somewhere along the way there's a glass ceiling for some of them and you probably have an issue. 

 

It does seem that in this millennium the profile of an England national team cricketer has shifted a little, so clearly there has been some progress, but the team are still a long way short of representing the demographic of the country. 

There's a huge disconnect between the realities of the amateur game and how things work at professional level, but that doesn't mean it's a pretence that cricket is fundamentally an inclusive sport at grassroots level. Recreationally cricket is played by people from all walks of life.

 

Nobody's denying there's a massive issue with a lack of access to the professional game though. The ECB decided to put all cricket behind a paywall in 2006 which turned a generation of kids off of the sport and therefore reduced the potential talent pool of state-schooled kids massively (ironically at a time when interest in cricket had never been higher due to the '05 Ashes), while for cash-strapped counties it's sadly so much easier to recruit from the ready-made private school and university production line than it is to invest and put proper structures in place to encourage others to thrive. It's the shame of the sport in England that that's the way it is.

Edited 17 August 2021 by Voll Blau

[Finnegan]

2 minutes ago, Voll Blau said:

There's a huge disconnect between the realities of the amateur game and how things work at professional level, but that doesn't mean it's a pretence that cricket is fundamentally an inclusive sport at grassroots level. Recreationally cricket is played by people from all walks of life.

 

I don't disagree with any of that, I just think it makes it even more problematic that a sport lacks diversity at elite level when it's apparently so very diverse at its grassroots. 

 

[The People's Hero]

Oh absolutely. You don't get anywhere at Kent unless your face fits and I imagine its the same with many other counties.

[fuchsntf]

20 hours ago, Clogger_ said:

I've been bowled out by people from all backgrounds. Black, white, rich, poor, male, female... They've all been too good for me! I don't discriminate 

Yes I hate all & everyone  last One of them, if they Bowl at me,get me out,Score a goal,Nick a try, throw further,Run quicker...dare to challenge me..!!

But  Great Friends Sharing  afterwards, Why even refs, marshals & doe doe Umpires...

[Silebyfox_89]

Undertaking is less dangerous than middle lane hogging on motorways.

[UpTheLeagueFox]

8 hours ago, Silebyfox_89 said:

Undertaking is less dangerous than middle lane hogging on motorways.

This is definitely not an unpopular opinion.

[Free Falling Foxes]

Nimby perhaps, but although I believe it is the right decision to offer safety to those fleeing Afghanistan who assisted our forces there, I do hope our glorious city mayor doesn't offer to take too many.

I believe we are, and have, more than done our duty in welcoming foreign nationals and can assure you, as someone who works for the local authority,  our resources are getting too stretched.

[Finnegan]

1 hour ago, Free Falling Foxes said:

as someone who works for the local authority

 

I mean absolutely no offence at all but  given the diversity of roles of employees working for the City, that's not, on its own, saying a lot. 

 

If you're a support worker in, or accountant for, Housing (for example) then fair enough. 

 

But you could equally be the guy that trims the hedges in Castle Gardens or the lifeguard from Braunstone pool. 

[Voll Blau]

How much say do local authorities have in how many refugees they'd take anyway? Would a quota not be imposed by central government?