Chelmsford, 27 May 2019
SINCE HIS full-time return to the Essex fold, Alastair Cook’s form had been solid if unspectacular. The Cricketer magazine was a little more scathing. A few weeks before this game, in an article called ‘The curious case of Sir Alastair Cook and Essex’ they noted: ‘Few batsmen leave the middle in a jovial mood, but Cook is disconsolate rather than angry, resigned as opposed to infuriated.’ In this, his 100th first-class game for Essex, the real ‘Chef’ would re-emerge.
Cricket’s big show was upon us. The World Cup started on the day Essex completed another comprehensive victory at Chelmsford. The event was ever only on Cook’s radar as a spectator. His last one-day international had come five years earlier. However, one could only feel for Joe Denly, who was playing his first game for his county since being omitted from the England squad. The Kent captain chose not to contest the toss and Essex batted. Cook would profit. He hit Denly for consecutive fours late in the final session to reach his first Championship hundred in two years and his 65th in first-class cricket. Then came the curious part. When Cook was on 125 and sharing a fourth-wicket stand of 130 with Ravi Bopara, he flicked the ball down the leg side and ambled a single. The batsmen then saw the possibility of two and accelerated. However, Sean Dickson had raced around behind the wicketkeeper from first slip to collect. His throw beat Cook’s lunge. It was his first ever run-out for Essex in red-ball cricket and only the third in his long, record-breaking career. The home side would lose their last seven wickets for 38 but 313 was an impressive first-innings score at Chelmsford in 2019.
After dismissing Kent for 182, Essex declared on 206/7 with Cook top-scoring on 90. It was the fourth time he had hit a hundred and 90-odd in his career in a two-innings game; he had never achieved three figures in both. All this meant Kent had to score 338 in 90 overs on the final day. It was an unlikely target but rain had curtailed play the previous afternoon and the visitors had developed a dogged reputation after batting three long sessions to secure a draw against Surrey a week earlier. However, Simon Harmer is made for such occasions.
His modus operandi is now well-known. After a few overs of seam, the South African pitches camp at the River End. He wheels away, ball after ball, over after over, beguiling opposition batsmen with his ability to illicit not only significant spin but also sharp lift. By many accounts, his handshake is akin to being in the grip of a bunch of bananas. Long, strong digits enable this fingersmith to perform his sorcery with such unerring consistency. Harmer collected 8-98 in the second innings to provide match figures of 11-170. By the time Essex completed the victory late in the afternoon of 30 May he was the leading wicket-taker in the Championship with 29 scalps.
A couple of hours later at The Oval, Imran Tahir edged Ben Stokes to Joe Root to complete England’s victory over South Africa. The World Cup was underway.
***
Tales of meaning and identity made me a sports fan, a desire to share them ushered me into sports journalism and, if you have got this far, stories are keeping you reading this book.
My aim is to wrap important messages about feelings and emotions within narratives surrounding England’s national sport at a time when its very existence is in doubt. At the back of their minds, even the most avid county cricket fan fears tales from the past may be all we will have if the next decade plays out badly.
No one attends a cricket match in a vacuum. Even the splendid isolation I enjoy while watching Essex at Chelmsford involves some sort of connection, however tenuous. Fans will say that a season drifts away when ‘there is nothing left to play for’. What they really mean is there is no chance of a significant story in the remaining fixtures. Of course, the contest between batsman and bowler still remains, all of the subtlety and sporting endeavour is present but, whatever happens, it will not mean anything.
It was a privilege to witness the exploits of Essex in 2017 and 2019. The long-awaited success, especially for that first title win, was so unexpected and joyous that a supporters’ story should be told. The timing was perfect personally. It was the distraction I needed and I just had to tell someone. Unfortunately, no one else really cared so I decided to start writing it all down.
However, there is a danger in stories, especially those we tell ourselves. If you are not a clear and obvious victor then one tends to weave a narrative in which you are the hero or at least can claim some sort of moral superiority. Football fans are naturals at this re-positioning. A defeated team’s supporters will loudly claim bad luck or refereeing incompetence/bias was the main reason for the defeat. If that does not work then they will shift their focus to the inequity of resources between the teams or even the relative lack of vocal support in relation to their success. If that fails then, in last resort, fans will mock their opponents for the close nature of the defeat. In practical terms, this last manoeuvre is from ‘You only sing when you’re winning’ to ‘How shit must you be, it’s only 3-0’.
County cricket fans are guilty of the same process, albeit a more diluted and civilised version. There are the ‘haves’, who play on Test grounds, and have-nots, who do not. The success of the latter is over-celebrated while the trophies won by the former are derided. At this juncture, I should point out yet again that, on Twitter, I refer to Surrey CCC as ‘Surrey’ and was quite happy to attempt to tear down their Championship success in 2018 by pointing out that one title in 16 years is utterly insufficient for a club of their abundant resources. As a fan, it was delightful to see Ryan ten Doeschate and Matt Quinn cling on during the last session of the final day amid a frisson of skullduggery to deny them the opportunity to match the unbeaten season of Essex the year before.
However, the fact remains that Surrey were the best team in 2018 and even the slights surrounding their past ‘cheque-book’ recruitment policy held little weight on this occasion. Still, there will be some that claim that it was not merited in some way. We are all emotional humans, liable to twist perceptions of reality to our own established narratives. This can be highly dangerous when your personal story changes as mine did in late 2016. I looked the same and acted the same but, in the eyes of the employment market, I was a different person. That’s if they were even seeing me anymore.
I returned to the UK with no job and a bruised ego. It was not a healthy combination. My something-will-come-up attitude eroded during 2017. I received a wealth of loud, highly contradictory advice – ‘take the first job that comes’ to ‘wait for the right gig’ and from ‘don’t price yourself out’ to ‘be selective, be expensive’. Frankly, I did not know what to do. I applied for a specific group of relevant jobs, got interviews, sometimes had second calls but always missed out. On a few occasions, I was runner-up. This was disappointing but enough to sustain a personal story of success. For a start, I was close to victory having beaten a host of other applicants and, secondly, this process normally involved a candid and predominantly positive follow-up conversation with the interviewer.
Then I got an interview for an average level job at a very prestigious organisation. I travelled up the night before and stayed over in one of those cheap hotels characterised by easy-clean surfaces, inadequate curtains and paper-thin walls. I shivered through the first part of the night then woke up obscenely early due to a mixture of anxiety and early-morning sunlight. The interview was horrible. It was almost like a contest of faux-interest. My first impression of the place, the people and their attitude felt all wrong. I believed the organisation was puffed up with self-importance. They may have thought precisely the same of me. My answers were OK at best but I still thought my background made me a strong candidate. However, one advantage of middle age is a greater understanding of what you are not. I resolved to call up the following morning to pull out of the process. But I neglected to contact them for a couple of days and I was a little taken back when I received an email saying thank you but they would not be taking the process forward. Again, reflection makes me think I wanted the validation of them being impressed enough with me before I could reject them. This sounds like narcissistic sixth-form dating nonsense but a lack of ego appeasement would colour my job applications during 2017.
A few months later, another role would emerge. On paper, this fitted perfectly and I diligently applied a day after it was advertised. This time, my questioner was someone I knew. He would be my boss, another prick to the ego given that we had been peers previously. As it transpired, the job was mundane with little room for development or expansion. Before the interview, I had been asked to wait on a set of sofas opposite the communal coffee machine. The office was on a basement floor lined with rough brown carpet and starkly illuminated by strip lighting. As I polished my mental notes, two office workers chatted conspiratorially as they made their cappuccinos and, within earshot, pilloried the performance of a mutual colleague. The bitching, the stifling environment and the narrowness of the job prompted me to pull out the next day. Looking back, it also protected my ego from another rejection. This job suited my skills and experience and it was with someone who knew me. Not getting it would have been crushing.
Not that I was idle in 2017. I managed to pick up some well-paid consultancy work on the other side of the world. Frequent trips made for exciting social media posts. Yet again, it was a harder yet more interesting route. But whom I was trying to impress was open to question. When that work ceased the following year I took more freelance gigs for much less money because they were interesting and allowed me to travel to a new country. Again, at this point, I must klaxon my good fortune. Bills were being paid, work was taxing yet hardly back-breaking and, through some hustling on my part, I was enjoying new experiences. Yet 2017 remains the worst year of my life.
On the surface, a story of success could be spun but the reality was different. Fortune had favoured me because I was reasonable at my job and had connections. But consultancy contracts do little for your security, financially or emotionally. Petty jealousies at roles I did not get or had not even known about would bite. Despite the shield of a lucrative short-term contract, it felt like others were moving on and leaving me behind. What would happen when that ended? This situation allows for more damaging stories to form. The ones you repeat in your mind to spark anger, paranoia and destructive bitterness. Through the grapevine, I heard that one person in a rival business was criticising me, personally and professionally, in order to retain a key contract. I had been asked by a mutual client to have ‘a chat’ then found out and a metaphorical knife was plunged in my back by someone who I had known for years. I do not know this for sure. It was floated by a well-placed friend as ‘a possibility’ then another respected colleague added that the miscreant had done the same to them. From that, I created a narrative of unethical behaviour on their part and a hero story of moral rectitude around myself. The accused had been found guilty in my own personal kangaroo court. Our paths have crossed since but I have deliberately avoided contact. This is taxing for me but, I venture, the accused thinks nothing of it.
Holding grudges is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. But, in my mind, the morals of this story were so clear it was impossible to let go. Working sporadically and with few close colleagues precludes the filter of differing opinions and the simple pressure valve of casual conversation. As 2017 went on and more jobs slipped by, I feared showing signs of desperation. Every email would be finished with ‘and if you hear of anything do let me know’ while recruiters stopped being interested if I did not bite at the first carrot they dangled. Coffees with former colleagues started to be cancelled and interviews became more infrequent. Then job descriptions written seemingly for me at organisations far smaller than those at which I had worked started to ignore my applications. I could handle not getting the jobs but, for a few of these, it seemed simply illogical not to be called for interview. When I chased up, apologetic recruiters would say they ‘just wanted something else’. I felt I was being fobbed off.
Of course, all this prompts you to construct another set of protective stories: ‘they are merely ageist’, ‘they are looking for the wrong qualities’, ‘the cult of the young has gone too far’. Then you turn the focus on yourself. If I had a different degree, had played the politics better, was younger or gone to public school my situation would be better. Probably the greatest lesson of all this is not to let your ego get in the way of personal progress. I still apply for jobs but now I assume nothing. Rejection after rejection has taught me to have zero expectation and that something was clearly wrong in a) what I was selling, b) what they were buying or c) a combination of both. Reskilling was a possibility but time was ticking. It would also cost money and mean starting towards the bottom. More importantly, I was already working in my main area of passion so I resolved to simply double down in my niche; work harder, smarter and try to evolve different skills. Even if that meant coping with the insecurity of freelancing.
Again, stories kick in once more. The facile projection of empty accomplishment is all too easy these days via personal social media and professional equivalents such as LinkedIn. Everyone must have a personal brand, even when it is crystal clear they have little to sell. It is a game I played but, in truth, this was nibbling around the margins. My psyche is ill-equipped for the self-promotion necessary to truly break through. However, that does not stop my anger at those self-marketers who, like Cockney market traders, spin attractive salesmanship to those passing by. We all know people who ‘puff up’ their CVs, claim credit for others’ ideas and promote personal success using yardsticks that no-one can verify. However, when our elected political leaders were indulging in such shenanigans in public view then one must expect others to follow. If this was ‘the game’ these days then perhaps I was jealous that others were simply more skilled, confident and happy to bend the rules. Maybe it was just an excuse but I told myself I did not want to play.
Looking back on these three years is illuminating. Yet again, it is easy to paint a story of success in terms of money, career growth and, crucially for me, personal development in line with my values. If I really wanted to plod along, having my ego stroked and earning decent money, I could have done so for the past few years. But I have broadened my life by barging my way out of a comfort zone. The world tells us this is commendable, right? They do not make motivational posters of beautiful people running across stunning terrain backed with slogans like ‘Play it Safe’, ‘Be fearful of failure’ or ‘I wouldn’t do that if I was you’.
Instead, they tell us to ‘seize the day’, gamble and go for it. Well, I did that and I lost. Or at least I feel I did. Even then the world says you should pat yourself heartily on the back for your bravery, safe in the knowledge that you tried. Then, with chutzpah oozing from every pore, dust yourself down and ‘go again’. But what if you are still bruised, what if you cannot face another rejection, what if you do not really know what you are doing and what if, deep down, you now fear you were never that good in the first place?
This is what faces a lot of people as they reach 50. Often that smooth ascent, in their career and life, has long-since flattened off and you believe the world has limited your options. If you miss out on a key job or your relationship breaks down and you cannot construct a self-convincing story of success then what do you do? Especially when your lifestyle expectations will be set, there may be debts or bills and people depend on you. Yet again, I must stress, this fundamental weight was not on my shoulders. Financially, I was fine. You could argue perversely that might have lessened the lack of identity from which I was suffering. I would have mixed cement on building sites and cleaned toilets in central London at 5am as I did as a student, if it meant feeding my family. But it did not. I had the luxury of choice. The problem was deciding on what to do and then convincing other people to pay me to do it. Ego was working against me, I did not know what I was anymore. But I knew I had to try and find some definition for the next 20 years of my working life.
There is a real danger of all this being dismissed as a person with considerable privileges bleating that they do not have as much as they used to and jealously looking at their peers wanting more. I can write another long-winded, spineless apology; however, I hope I have made my good fortune clear. All the issues I have faced do not register on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. However, that does not mean they are insignificant. While I claim no expertise in this area, it seems clear that suicide rates among my demographic, middle-aged men, are the highest of any section of the UK population. Should you have any concerns in this area then seek professional help or at least start by consulting the notes from the Opening Up charity and its associated links at the back of this book.
Numbers from the Office of National Statistics in the UK notes that 30- to 44-year-old men were the highest group of suicides through the 1990s and 2000s but 45- to 59-year-olds have taken over in the last decade. In 2018, The Samaritans reported ‘in the UK, men are three times as likely to die by suicide than women’ and that ‘the highest suicide rate is among men aged 45-49’. In the same year, The American Foundation for the Prevention of Suicide wrote: ‘The suicide rates were higher among adults ages 45 to 54 years (20.04 per 100,000) and 55-64 years (20.20 per 100,000), with the rate highest among adults ages 52-59 years (21.56 per 100,000). Younger groups have had consistently lower suicide rates than middle-aged and older adults.’
It is not straightforward economic deprivation that leads to a higher rate of suicide either. A 2012 paper from San Francisco Federal Reserve found that low-income inhabitants were much more likely to kill themselves if they lived in high-income areas. It argued the pressure to ‘keep up with the Joneses’ was an important factor. More broadly, it has been cited that suicide rates are relatively high among richer nations because of the so-called ‘no-one left to blame’ phenomenon, when your outward circumstances are positive but your inward monologue remains negative. Sadly, cricket and suicide have strong links. An entire book has been devoted to the subject and the author, David Frith, once calculated that UK players are 75 per cent more likely to take their lives than the general population.
Despite a daily dose of outward and inward negativity, this issue has never hit me. Still, we all need to be mindful of the stories we tell ourselves and the refuges we find when the noise gets too loud. For some, it is alcohol, betting, drugs or family-dividing affairs. For me, it was stolen sessions at Chelmsford when I should have been working.
However, there are benefits to being 50 years old and directionless. One of the most important is my relationship with my daughter. For years my son was my ‘mini-me’. In his primary school years, he acted similarly to myself so I treated him in the way I would have wanted at his age. He has developed his own personality as he has grown older and I confidently predict he will become a fine man. When I was his age I was already displaying some of the neuroses that would manifest themselves later on in life when I leapt out of my comfort zone. He is popular, grounded, bright and kind. While our shared love for sport binds us, I fear I will be forever failing to work cricket into his heart. But that is the tiniest price to pay.
It was always harder with my daughter. Sport was my seven-day-a-week job for years so perhaps she did not ‘get me’. I was ‘silly Daddy’ or ‘smelly Daddy’ or the Daddy at which you rolled your eyes and went to Mummy. Now, I feel she likes me. The change occurred over three years of school runs. The education options were limited on our return to the UK so our children ended up moving to a small primary school on the other side of our town. This meant a 30-minute round journey twice a day plus drop-off time. After the first year, it was just the two of us. Soon I managed to move beyond the stupid songs and cretinous jokes that every father hides behind to start having proper conversations. I found out what she liked to talk about and games she wanted to play. As we entered the third year, I started to get unsolicited hugs at home.
The drive itself was awful, a meandering slalom across a market town involving impatient jaywalkers, pushy drivers, Neanderthal teenagers, a kaleidoscope of traffic lights and enough sleeping policemen to ruin my suspension. She learnt several new swear words over the years as we rushed out of the house to avoid the ignominy of signing the dreaded ‘late book’. I am writing this at the end of her last spring term before moving to secondary school. I will not be needed then. This is great news. Not least for watching Championship games. I used to arrive early after I raced to the ground after dropping her off but nearly always curtailed my afternoon session to pick her up. I rushed away from Chelmsford on the day Essex lifted the trophy for the first time in a generation in 2017 to take her to her first competitive netball game. All those school runs are a restriction for anyone but especially if you are trying to get a consultancy business off the ground and have a somewhat unhealthy obsession with county cricket.
Yet I am going to miss them terribly when they are gone. The congestion was ridiculous, the driving was needlessly aggressive and it was stressful managing my daily routine around pick-ups. But it was a privilege to have her undivided attention for so long every day.