Cricket: If you want fun, stay at home

Zealous officials clamp down on enjoyment

By Richard Boock
At the World Cup

LEEDS - A word of warning to anyone thinking of attending this so-called Carnival of Cricket: please leave your sense of humour at home.

Already organisers at the seventh cricket World Cup have banned klaxons, horns, flagpoles and whistles at match venues, and at Headingley they seem to have a policy of simply ejecting from the ground anyone who appears to be enjoying themselves too much.

The venue famous for a series of public relations disasters a couple of years ago will not tolerate patrons embracing anything out of the ordinary, notwithstanding the fact that its own operation could not be more outrageous if it had John Cleese on the main gate and Billy Connelly as ground announcer.

It came as no surprise, then, to see a group of apparently harmless supporters frog-marched out the gates by security staff last night after showing the temerity and bad-taste to start dancing the conga halfway through the one-dayer between Zimbabwe and New Zealand.

After all, this is the ground that banned fancy dress a couple of years ago after it discovered that patrons were coming along dressed in Roman togas or as the Spice Girls, and having far more fun than is healthy for any one group of individuals.

Apparently, if you weren't biting the end off your pipestem and muttering "I dunno what's goin' off out there," you weren't a real cricket supporter.

First, there was the case of the 51-year-old Professor Brian Cheeseman, who was forcibly ejected from a Headingley test two years ago after arriving dressed as a giant carrot.

He began legal proceedings against the Yorkshire County Cricket Club on the basis of discrimination against vegetables.

Then there was the incident concerning Branco Resiki, who, while filling a role as the back end of a pantomine cow, was tackled and rammed so hard into the boundary hoardings at Headingley that he was admitted to hospital for a night's observation.

Witnesses recall him being hoisted into an ambulance still dressed as a cow's rear end.

However, despite the crackdown on bringing a sense of humour into the ground (officials are apparently unable to frisk for it at the gate) Headingley ground staff make up for it with an act which, like Sir Richard Hadlee, is all the more comical for its lack of intent.

The ground announcer continually passes on messages to the crowd. Yesterday's were mostly on the tame side - "Mr Fairclough, would you please contact Mr Aimes at home," and "Mr Sproggett, would you please go to the St James Hospital immediately - your wife's in labour."

It can only be a matter of time, it seems, until we hear, "Mr Morris, Mrs Morris wants you pick up a loaf of bread on the way home, or "Mr Grimstead, your proctologist appointment's been postponed until Thursday."

It seems the idea of introducing humour into British sport has still some way to go until it is fully understood and tolerated - let alone appreciated.

There was the first-division soccer debacle between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Bristol City earlier in the year when "Wolfie" the mascot ended up in a skirmish with Bristol's Three Little Pigs.

A short time later Swansea City's mascot, Cyril the Swan, was charged with bringing the game into disrepute after dashing on to the field and joining in a goalscoring celebration.

Swansea's chairman later pleaded: "This thing is bigger than all of us," which was the gospel truth as Cyril stood nine-and-half-feet tall.

There was also big trouble at Sunderland's home ground this season when the Port Vale mascot, Boomer the dog, not only made lewd gestures to the host crowd, but also cocked his hindleg on the corner of the Sunderland dugout and almost caused a riot.

Football clubs at one stage merchandised a lot of inflatable goods: Manchester City fans always carried a bunch of blow-up bananas, while sea-port Grimsby Town opted for an inflatable haddock.

The sight of 3000 blow-up fish being waved around in the crowd after Grimsby scored is still remembered vividly in these parts.

The inflatables haven't completely disappeared, either. Shane Warne was taunted with a blow-up whale in Australia's World Cup match against Scotland last month, while a New Zealand lamb was sacrificed by jubilant Pakistan supporters at Derby last week.