Hit the North: Politics, Cricket and Culture Collide

PL on an Ashes snub

Some years back David Lloyd took a press box poll on Manchester’s best bands during the 2023 Test match at Old Trafford (I’ll put a better pic of the list below)

Can Et Al add its voice to those protesting the scandalous scheduling of next year’s Ashes? Admittedly, it isn’t as bad as the fart bubble about possibly moving an Australia-England Test to India, but the lack of northern exposure in the 2027 schedule is disappointing.

If Et Al has one home away from home, it is Manchester, and if we had to choose another outside of London, we are big fans of Leeds, but both of the northern venues have been snubbed by planners of the next men’s series.

The women’s Ashes Test will, at least, be played at Headingley, and the men may play a warm-up match at Old Trafford, but even that is contingent on not being in the WTC final.

I’ve got nothing against the other venues, but if you have followed our coverage over the last few series, you will know how much fun we have in Manchester. Birthplace of The Fall, the city is the musical equivalent of Bethlehem for Gideon and a place of pilgrimage for both of us. Gideon’s face lit up the night when we found mosaics of Mark E Smith in a back lane, and there was quite a spring in his step the day we did The Fall pub crawl, finishing as we did at the Smith’s favourite pub and the venue of his infamous wake.

Which gives me an opportunity to republish this picture from 2023 …

Gideon five non alcoholic Guinnesses deep outside Mark E Smith’s favourite pub on Et Al’s Fall pub crawl

Any city where the sidestones squelch under your feet, even in summer, is our sort of city.

Cricket up that way has a distinctive flavour and a rich history.

Mike Atherton, one of the area’s finest exports, wrote an impassioned protest against the decision to snub the northern venues in a column for The Times.

Fifteen million people or thereabouts live in the north and when it comes to cricketing geography, the snub cuts even harder, because no region in the country has a stronger cricketing heritage or love for the game. Yorkshire has more cricket clubs than the entirety of Australia. It is our greatest county, the richest in tradition and has produced more great cricketers than any other. Lancashire hasn’t done too badly either.

Two years ago, then mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham, wrote to the ECB to complain in similar terms with no apparent impact. The local politician has now been elevated to Prime Minister of the country and advocate of what he calls “Manchesterism”, a philosophy explained in a recent interview.

“I talk about doing for the rest of the country, what I have tried to do for Greater Manchester – Manchester-ism as we call it – and it’s that more interventionist approach to the economy,” he said. “People say, what is Manchester-ism?

“But let me answer it. It is the end of neo-liberalism. The end of trickle down, actually, that didn’t trickle much down to Makerfield or other places like it.”

Northern humour, Old Trafford

Burnham’s book, Head North, sets out his cultural reference points which aren’t far from some of his and our generation’s.

“Music was my other obsession and, during the early 80s, my favourite album was Signing On by UB40. The album cover was a copy of the unemployment benefit form from which the band took their name … later on I was getting ready to take my O Levels in 1986, a schoolfriend lent me Hatful of Hollows by The Smiths. It changed everything. From that moment, I was a disciple of Manchester music”.

Burnham saw The Smiths on their 1986 The Queen is Dead tour at Salford Uni, calling it “the best gig I have ever seen". It might seem like a bid to be accepted as cool, but the new PM argues Manchester bands were an important source of pride and inspiration for young people in an area that had “been battered through the 80s, with hammer blow after hammer blow”.

Reading on, Et Al discovered a sporting link with Atherton.