Celebration Days, 31 years apart

Jim Swanton to Matthew Fleming.

Jim Swanton authored 23 books during his career, but to the Spitfire's knowledge, neither he nor anyone else has ever written a guide on how to celebrate when you've finally won something.

In 1995, straight out of university and coping with a dead-end job with Kent County Council, I spent the last day of the summer watching Kent win the Axa Equity & Law Sunday League at The St Lawrence. I don't remember getting drenched by champagne.

There can't have been many times during his career when Matthew Fleming was only the second poshest man in a conversation, and when the above quote made the papers it made me laugh, but that was partly because I thought Swanton looked and sounded like a being from another planet: So did most of the cricket journos of the era.

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These days drinking on the circuit is largely confined to Derbyshire's hardcore press pack and Durham's players, but even 20 years ago Fleet Street had a drinking culture. 12 pint sessions were considered normal.

When I first started covering Kent, they were still playing at The Mote. Towards the back end of a one-dayer with Durham, Kent were closing in on victory but the light was fading. One hack said: “We’ll be all right as long as Amjad doesn’t do something stupid like bowl a bouncer”. Amjad Khan’s next delivery was indeed a bouncer, and the hack in question responded by saying he had to go for an “emergency” pint.

I enjoyed the stories of John Arlott knocking back two bottles of red during lunch intervals and another two before stumps, but quite aside from wondering how he could have been lucid enough to file, at the back of my mind, I always wondered: how did he get home?

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"That journey could turn the Dalai Lama into Peter Sutcliffe ..."

Days like yesterday don’t happen too often, so when they do, how do you react? I’ve been lucky enough to cover a few celebrations during my career and I've attended a few more as a fan, but the logistics are always a challenge. When Kent won the Blast in 2021, the euphoria was tempered by the knowledge I had to drive back from Birmingham at ten in the evening.

A year later I trusted the rail network to get me home from Trent Bridge after the 50-over final, even though I knew the journey could turn the Dalai Lama into Peter Sutcliffe.

And when Maidstone United knocked Ipswich out of the FA Cup in 2024 the group I was with were all so astonished we just went to a KFC near Portman Road and drove home.

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Some things haven't changed since 1995. On the day the Sunday League title was decided, a group of us walked for half an hour to get to Maidstone East. We got a train, changed at Ashford and then walked for another 40 minutes from Canterbury West to the St. Lawrence, before doing the reverse a few hours later.

Three decades later, anyone who uses public transport to get to the St. Lawrence will know it’s still a two-hour commute from the County Town, and that’s if nothing goes wrong.

At the start of day three I thought it was 80 percent likely the game would be over by the close of play, one way or the other, but that 20 percent convinced me to drive, even if it meant missing out on potential celebrations, especially as this is now a job rather than a hobby.

I definitely didn’t want to be want to be sitting at Ashford “International” for an hour waiting for a connection, especially if Kent lost or if we were coming back for a fourth day.

The quickest route, the M2, tends to be clogged by DFLs on Saturdays, so I took the alternative, sticking close to the Pilgrims Way. This is a lot more scenic, although someone seems to have died in Charing as there are a number of flags flying half-mast from the lamp posts by the roundabout.

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"I’m convinced that one day one of the stewards is going to get maimed ..."

Being able to park at the ground is now a significant perk of the job, but once I’ve got through the gates I tend to hide my media pass. On the rare occasions the stewards ask if you’re “media” they direct you to the allocated press spaces on the Nackington Road side of the ground and the problem with these is that you’re only one Grant Stewart bomb away from needing a new windscreen.

The problem with parking on the hospital side of the ground is I’m convinced that one day one of the stewards is going to get maimed. They stand right in front of the bonnet and beckon you forwards, even when it looks as though you're about to knock them over. Every time I do this I feel like I’m on a ferry, where someone working for Wight Link or DFDS has been told to cram as many vehicles as possible onto a deck, regardless of their own personal health and safety.

One of them is apparently Orlando Bloom’s step father although I’ve never actually asked him about this, mainly because I’m usually relieved I haven’t splintered his shins.

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At the start of day three pretty much everyone, the pessimists included, felt that Kent were going up. I was cautious enough to tweet there was a “better than 50-50 chance” but in reality I felt it was closer to 80-20 and I was still one of the Jonahs.

The emotional insurance policy was knowing Middlesex were favourites at Lord’s, but I still thought Northants might set them a target of 200. As Gloucestershire were only two down overnight, I also thought they had a chance of getting a similar kind of lead and worried that Kent had a long tail … if they'd managed to bat until the evening session, I thought any run chase would have been 50-50 at best.

These were, admittedly, pretty big ifs. Gloucestershire are bottom for a reason, although given their resources they’re significantly less of a rabble than Lancashire.

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“There’s been a wicket!” someone yelled, excitedly, before adding “… at New Road”.

In 1995 we needed the emotional insurance policy. If we didn’t beat Warwickshire, we knew we’d still be champions if Worcestershire failed to win and beating that Warwickshire side was easier said than done.

On the day Kent completely “bottled” it, to use the modern shitgibbon’s verb of choice, but the rain at New Road made it irrelevant.

The news was spread by radio and word-of-mouth, but there was frustratingly little confirmation.

Now almost everyone in the ground has a phone and pretty much everyone was keeping tabs on the score from Lord’s. This was easier to deal with Northants were batting... The day started badly, with Zak Crawley dropping Tom Boorman in the first over, but the news quickly filtered through that Northants had lost two early wickets.

Within an hour Northants were all out, but that meant any groans now signalled Middlesex wickets. Kent’s media team sit in the back row of the St. Lawrence press box and they were watching both games, while giving off a series of excited noises, some genuine, some performative. “There’s been a wicket!” one of them yelled, excitedly, before adding “… at New Road”.

Nick Friend of The Cricketer tried to join in: “Did you know Middlesex are five down?” It didn’t work, partly because he doesn’t have the natural confidence of a bullshitter, but mostly because we we only ten minutes into the lunch interval: the key to a successful wind up is plausibility.

After a while I gave up and started watching the stream from Lord’s on a second screen, although by then the waters were significantly calmer. Four wickets fell during the morning session and by lunch Middlesex were 45-2, having survived an early wobble. At that stage I was 90 percent sure we’d go up, although this was still cautious compared to Martin Shaw’s 99.9 certainty.

By 2.40pm it was official, with Middlesex’s winning runs celebrated around the ground well before the PA announcer Steve Watts made the official announcement.

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"No amount of of champagne can entirely quell the feeling of nausea stirred by Dermot Reeve’s celebration at the end."

Here my memory of 1995 fails: I don’t remember any official announcement that the game at New Road had been abandoned, although with champagne glasses being offered to players from the Ames (or whatever it was called then) it did seem fairly obvious.

The problem was, that it didn’t feel like a triumph because Kent were getting hammered in the wrong sense, losing by five wickets in a game where they were under the pump right from the start. No amount of of champagne can entirely quell the feeling of nausea stirred by Dermot Reeve’s celebration at the end. Nor can it quite wipe out the feeling that side should have won more than it did: for the full story on that, I'd recommend Steve Marsh's book, "The Gloves are Off" if you can find a copy.

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There are no such obvious divisions in this current, red-ball squad. Gloucestershire were eight down when the announcement came, but Dhariwal and Taylor were building an annoying partnership that at least allowed them to set a three-figure target. If Kent hadn’t chased that down it wouldn’t have killed the vibe, but it might have been slightly embarrassing.

Gloucestershire, however, repaid Zak Crawley for the earlier dropped catch. He smacked the first ball of the innings for four, but nicked Langridge to Price in the same over, only for the stand-in captain to spill him at second slip. Crawley cashed in with a 44 of some violence. He played like a man who wanted to get it done in a hurry, and although Compton did go early, there was very little tension.

Northeast has made a series of quietly telling contributions this year and he did so again here, stripping away any lingering anxieties. It was slightly surprising that DBD came out ahead of Muyeye when Crawley slog-swept Kishore to Hammond, but absolutely no one begrudged him the honour of being there at the end, or of having the best view in the house as Northeat pounded Price for a six and two fours to seal the win.

The tributes were already pouring in and someone asked if Sam Billings could be persuaded to go full kit. It would have been one hell of a meme if he hadn’t been at Heathrow.

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"The chairman himself came in with a bottle of Chapel Down..."

By now the press box was reeking, partly because bottles were being passed around, partly because our data analyst Rick “Ron” Usher always shuts the windows at the close of play and in even 20 degree heat this turns a relatively small room into an oven.

In a throwback to Swanton’s era, when stewards would actually ask reporters to place a drinks order for the evening session, the chairman himself came in with a bottle of Chapel Down.

Sadly he did so while Matt Milnes was being interviewed, so he he quietly handed the bottle over and ducked away. I don’t know anyone covering Kent who drinks on the job now and even some of the non-drivers were turning it down, but Chapel Down, if you haven’t tried it, is very good shit and I was sorry I had to forego it. The people who did drink it had to use paper cups, which did at least soften the blow.

Other options were available, but no one touched the stash of John Smith’s. We were told we could take some home, but I had to politely decline, explaining to one of the younger members of staff that when you get to a certain age you can only process a finite number of units and you can’t waste those on the kind of liquified horse manure embittered northerners pretend to enjoy.

You probably could drink several bottles of Budweiser and still be legal because it is, as Eric Idle once said, like making love in a canoe: “fucking close to water”.

I’m not sure what Arlott would have made of the Chapel Down, although I suspect it wouldn’t have touched the sides. But at least we weren’t spraying it around, which would have pleased Swanton if was looking down on us. Fill in your own, class-conscious punchline here.