Brian Halford on 10 years covering Warwickshire County Cricket Club
For Warwickshire, the ‘Noughties’ was a decade of mixed fortunes on the field and considerable change and controversy off it. BRIAN HALFORD chronicled the Bears’ exploits throughout a period which transformed both county cricket and the wider cricket world. Here, he takes a stroll through his decade as arwickshire correspondent for the Birmingham Post and Mail.
2007
It takes a big man to admit he is not up to a job. Streak is such a man and resigned the captaincy after the first championship match of 2007. Greatbatch is not and waited to be sacked, thereby pocketing sizeable compensation, at the end of an angry, bitter and, at times, excruciating season in which Warwickshire suffered double relegation. People who have been around Edgbaston a long time rate 2007 the club’s unhappiest year.
Darren Maddy took on the captaincy and at first the paper stayed on those cracks. But then the whole edifice came down. A capitulation at Durham at the start of August sent the season into freefall.
So much at a county cricket club emanates from the chief coach and unhappiness infected the club top to bottom. It was acute in the dressing room where good players floundered. The Bears cast around for a Harris-type saviour. Alfonso Thomas. Ant Botha. Nayan Doshi. Vaughn van Jaarsveld. There was to be no rescue.
A desperate, hopeless season was summed up by Greatbatch’s minder, fellow Kiwi Dave Hadfield, trying his hypnotism on players and staff who humoured him by sitting through his routine when actually not feeling sleepy at all.
The nightmare ended only with the departure of Greatbatch and, later, the resignation of Claughton though, strangely, not Houghton.
2008
After the Greatbatch gaffe, Warwickshire had to get the next appointment right. Fortunately, a popular candidate was at hand. Ashley Giles, recently retired from playing, became director of cricket and recruited Donald as bowling coach.
With Brown, Keith Piper and Neil Abberley, the coaching staff brimmed with ex-Bears, just what was required by a club desperately needing to regain its confidence, composure and identity.
On the field, the Second Division provided a forgiving arena. The Bears steadily rose to the top where they finished. Trott, after a disastrous 2007, began the voyage of rediscovery which was to take him into England’s team.
Chris Woakes launched a career which will take him there. The Bears’ one-day cricket remained erratic but Maddy stepped down as skipper at the end of the season with the squad rebuilding well.
But would the pavilion ever get rebuilt? For Edgbaston-based scribes, the years 2000-2009 brought three recurring questions. 2000-2005: “How’s Ashley’s hip?” 2006-2007: “When’s ‘Batch going?” and 2008-2009: “What’s the latest on the pavilion?” As 2009 dawned, the Pavilion End ‘Master Plan’ was still in the thick of battle against financial and planning hurdles and residents’ protests.
2009
Finally, in December 2009, the last obstacle to the Master Plan was removed. Construction of the new Pavilion End will begin early in 2010. The start of a new decade will truly herald a new era.
Warwickshire begin that decade in the championship First Division after a solid return under the captaincy of Ian Westwood. The Bears pursued a similar policy to 2004, above all insuring against defeat. And while their batsmen were nowhere near consistent enough to amass totals to emulate the feat of five years before, they did enough to achieve the No.1 objective and stay up.
There were also signs of advances in one-day cricket with an undefeated 40-over campaign and another strong group stage in the Twenty20, albeit followed by yet another quarter-final exit.
Cricket at Edgbaston in 2010 will be strange. Half the ground will be a building site as Warwickshire CCC enters its 116th year as a first-class county.
What will the next ten years bring? Who knows. May I just say what a privilige it was for me to cover the club for almost a tenth of its existence and to everyone out there – supporters, players, staff, journalists, coaches, far, far too many to mention – a huge thank you for your help, your kindness, your good humour and your company. Especially in those damned rain breaks!
