Wednesday Picture: Slogging it in South London


Drifting in and out of my reverie came the police sirens woo-wooing down Landor Road, the gospel music rehearsals of the nearby Pentecostal church, and above all, the cricket

The Kia Oval Cricket Ground Image: Surrey Cricket
The Kia Oval Cricket Ground Image: Surrey County Cricket

Grant Gordon is a musician, BBC radio broadcaster and writer. He played drums and bass in The Divine Comedy, and his first book Cobras in the Rough, about playing golf in India, was published by Constable & Robinson last year. He grew up in south London and recently moved from Brixton to Highgate. Here he writes about one of the things he misses most…

There was a beautiful apple tree in my Brixton garden. Two summers ago, I was between drafts of my book as my publisher had demanded “major structural changes”. Keen to tackle this with an oblique strategy, I pumped up my Argos inflatable mattress, and lay on it for three days underneath the apple tree. I knew every word that I’d written, I just had to re-order them. The riots were a few days away, but for a while I just let the sun dazzle my body, as I’d fix on the pink and white apple blossom, shut my eyes and copy edit.

It is never silent in Brixton. Drifting in and out of my reverie came the police sirens woo-wooing down Landor Road, the gospel music rehearsals of the nearby Pentecostal church, and above all, the cricket.

England were in the process of destroying India that summer, and my kitchen radio played the BBC’s coverage of the Trent Bridge match. As I slipped in an out of my copy editing, Henry Blofeld’s fruitily voiced commentary would ping pong around me, carried by the gentle breeze. A few gardens down I could hear my old Jamaican friend Maxwell listening to the same cricket broadcast, but on a slight delay from mine; I was still using an analog Roberts radio, while Maxwell had obviously upgraded to digital.

Cricket and south London go hand in hand for me. When I was a kid, my father would take me most Sundays to watch Surrey play at The Oval. I became a youth member, and wide-eyed, used to attend meet-the-players sessions in the pavilion. So when I finally made the BIG MOVE out of the suburbs into London, I was delighted to find a flat within a Super Six slog of the ground, and that I could get away with saying I lived in “Oval”, rather than “Kennington”. Sometimes I went to Test Matches there, and would nip home for lunch, or grab a quick Sag Aloo snack from the wonderful Old Calcutta restaurant on the Brixton Road.

That summer I had resolved to play cricket again, whilst I still had the legs, and my prostate wasn’t too rumbly. I bought some pads online, and a box at The Oval equipment shop – spending quite a while there working out what size I needed. A very male problem, this – you’re really not allowed to try them on. Most importantly, I bought some wicket-keeping gloves. I can’t bowl, I can barely bat, but for some reason I have always enjoyed hurling myself around, trying to catch, or at least block a small red missile being hurled at me at 80 mph.

I joined two clubs, the game-slut that I am. A really posh one in Surrey, and a more urban one in Wandsworth. This team was mostly made up of British Asians. In one match during Ramadan the team consisted of nine Moslems, a Sikh and me. A lavish tea had been prepared, which the Sikh and I devoured apologetically in front of our fasting team mates. Most Saturdays that summer I travelled to odd places in south London like Mitcham, Croydon, Hersham and Norbury to play or most often, dodge the drizzle.

From my balcony in my new flat in north London, I can see the cyber city floodlights of Lord’s. I was there last week as a guest of an old MCC member. I repeatedly got told off by stewards for not wearing a jacket in The Long Room, for moving behind the bowler’s arm and for spilling lager over a venerable lady’s Daily Telegraph.

I want to play next year; my wife says there must be loads of clubs in north London. She’s right of course, but to me, cricket is only cricket in the Deep South.

Words: Grant Gordon

cobras in the rough grant gordonCobras in the Rough: Life, Death and Golf… India Style (Constable and Robinson) is out now.

You can also listen to Grant’s music over at Soundcloud: Pop Songs and Century and check out the video for Requiem Part 3 – Pie Jesu. Requiem will tour next year. @SingingCobra


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