Kerry Packer’s colourful World Series in the late 70s had whet the public’s appetite for floodlit cricket.
Thirty-six years ago last week, Britain’s first floodlit cricket contest took place. Instead we’ll remember a time when the two sports came together to put on a remarkable cricket match. So you won’t hear the Spin bemoaning the encroachment of association football, with all its ill-advised tattoos, disrespect for officials and ugly commercialism, on the rarified land of cricket (with … ah … and yes … well). A week separated the first county championship, which ended on the 30 August 1890, from the start of the fledgling Football League on 6 September but just two years later there was overlap, Sussex and Somerset waiting for the rain to stop at Hove while Newton Heath, The Wednesday and co were kicking off on 3 September. Largely because mixed in with the moaning is a pining for a time that didn’t really exist.
#First international cricket match full#
We still have five ODIs and a T20 remaining in Pakistan’s tour not to mention five rounds of County Championship fixtures to play before the final day of the season on 23 September, by which stage the Champions League will be in full swing, the Premier League will be reasserting its dominance in the sporting consciousness and any optimism surrounding the future of the England national side will presumably be a fading memory on the back of Sam Allardyce’s first match in charge.Ĭricket versus football in August (and, increasingly, September) has long been an annual British turf war – like the Boxing Day battle between Bridge on the River Kwai and a nice long walk – with the general tone one of mourning that the summer sport has to give way so soon to its winter equivalent, pads and gloves stomped into the outfield by the latest Nike/Adidas/Puma ÜberStrike boot as it hares down the wing. It’s that time of year when football traipses its muddy boots into cricket’s freshly vacuumed deep pile.
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