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Cricket
Bill Shankly of Liverpool Football Club said famously: 'football isn't about life or death - it's much more serious than that'. I feel the same way about cricket.
All my life I've been playing cricket and been involved with cricket clubs. The thing about this game is that it brings people of all ages together in a way that football never can. I play in matches with both my older son in league games and (this year) with both him and my younger old son in friendlies. How many 48 year old fathers can play football for their town in the same town as their sons?
Every Sunday morning in the summer you'll see in the Park and elsehwere in Gloucester - like Sunday morning rugby at the Hucclecote RFC, Old Cryptians and other clubs - lots of boys getting coaching and competitive matches.
Over the years I have captained sides at school, Christ Church Oxford, the Shanghai and Cirencester Cricket Clubs, my own side Barton Mill and the Cotswold District Council. I have also played for many other clubs, including the Gloucestershire Gipsies, the Ramblers, the Butterflies, Tarbarrow, Bisley, the Desert Rats and Rodmarton and loved them all.
Because cricket isn't played at some comprehensives now, the best way to get involved is to join a club - Hardwicke for Quedgeley residents (until the Waterwells Club is up and running), AIW, Gloucester City/Wingets etc. I recommend it strongly - a wonderful way to make friends in the summer.
Meanwhile let's all support Jon Lewis and the young Gloucestershire Cricket Club get promotion to the top league in 2008. I will definitely be at the Gloucester Cricket Festival on the Archdeacon's Meadow in the summer..
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Council