Having been born in 1968, our family was indoctrinated on ’66 spirit - the momentous year when England won the World Cup against one of our greatest sporting rivals. If ever my sister and I needed to go that extra mile doing whatever sporting challenge, my Dad would be shouting ’66 spirit’ from the side line where he would always be standing.
Years of childhood despair ensued as I followed my Dad’s example and became a West Ham fan. Football, football, football was all that filled our lives until a day in July 1981 when England were destined to fall foul to one of its other great sporting rivals, Australia. I did not really know much about cricket as a 13-year-old. It was not on the TV as it is now 24/7, all I knew was that when I woke up on that historic day my Dad was not even going to bother to watch it. He did however decide to listen to TMS while taking on the arduous task of trying to clear out the garden pond.
The volume of radio started at what I would call an acceptable level and my Dad took his frustrations out on the reeds he was vigorously pulling out. My sister, my cousins and I were playing 52 bunker and typically I was unsuccessful with the most ridiculous hiding place and in an effort to get home safely tripped over the extension lead which was connected to the radio. After an eye roll and about 30 minutes of silence, he reconnected it and I could sense that his mood had lifted. The radio was turned up a few notches and the reed pulling became a bit less aggressive. Then there were shouts to my Mum to turn it up a bit and then a bit more and then Dad let out a cheer like I had never heard before. I suddenly became aware that this game I’d not really heard of before was actually very important.
The radio got turned up to a ridiculous volume, my Dad’s cheers grew louder and then my Mum came running out of the house as the vicar had just called to request the radio be turned down and whoever the man was cheering at the top of his voice to kindly respect the fact that living next to a church and behaving like this during their choir practice was just not acceptable.
This was my first initiation into cricket and the Ashes. Who would have thought some 40 years later I would be working in the game and be as addicted to it now as he was then
Sam Relf, Events and Fundraising Executive, The PCA
Memory added on August 26, 2014
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