Just can it

I have posted before about how miserable it is to watch Test cricket at the Brit Oval these days. Not only are the views from the cheap seats pretty poor, but you have to spend most of the game with four or five grim-looking fluorescent jacket-wearing stewards standing in the way, ever on the look-out for possible bad behaviour.

The worst thing is the heavy-handed way they apply their alcohol policy, rummaging through bags on the gate (and thus causing delays for everyone gettin in) lest someone be trying to smuggle through some booze. Once they are in, obviously, they can get as drunk as they want on things they buy from the bars. The final straw for me last year was when I saw three - three - gate stewards standing around a bottle of what an elderly gentleman was calling squash last year, sniffing it to see whether he had dribbled some alcohol into it. It really is pathetic how little the Oval trusts its paying customers.

News now reaches me from a reader of Line and Length that it is not only alcohol that is banned but soft drinks too, if they are in the wrong containers. "I noticed that the people ahead of me had had two cans of Coca-Cola confiscated," my correspondent writes. "Thinking it was another of those dastardly sponsorship scams where people can only bring in the drink of the sponsors choice I asked what the objection to cans of Coca-Cola was. 'They're weapons', said the chap. 'We have to take them off them'. 'Weapons?', I said with some incredulity. 'We've been told they're weapons', he said."

Lunacy and completely disrespectful to supporters. How often do you see a member of the crowd, even when they are fully beered up, chucking cans at players or other spectators? Yes, it happened once to Michael Bevan about ten years ago but I have never seen such behaviour. In any case, if anyone really wanted to be wantonly violent, couldn't they chuck coins or mobile phone? Preferably at the stewards.

As my correspondent says: "Wait until they get around to the wine decanters they are issuing to members on the top deck of the Pavilion."

Comments

[Humphrey B Bear]

Gday Pat old mate...

You cut a fine figure on the field I must say.

It appears you're having trouble fitting your 'robust' physique into the creams. Let me know if you need a referral to a 'special' tailor mate. God knows I've struggled similarly over the years. Happy to help.

But I digress.

I wait with BearBaited breath, upon Deanies' comments about draconian measures at English cricket grounds. Maybe the 'Gabba Trust could offer some advice regarding enjoyment facilitation?

I'm somewhat connected as you know. Give me the tip if your erstwhile colleague requires a contact. Simon too, for that matter...

Take it easy Pat.

[Mick James]

Catering and security at the Oval are so grim that going there is more like being rounded up by a dictator than attending a sporting event. The ban on alcohol wouldn't be so bad if the choice of drinks inside wasn't so dire: Foster's Lager, Scrumpy Jack cider or the disgusting travesty that is Marston's smooth "bitter". What an accompaniment to a game that is supposed to be the quintessence of Englishness!