The Barmy Army

We have a bit of an argument running in our family at the moment; well, not so much an argument, perhaps, as an agreeable disagreement. It concerns The
Barmy Army.

My son, who is in his forties, feels quite strongly that the Barmy Army has considerably added to the enjoyment of watching cricket for many, many people. They have livened it up. They have made it more fun: brought it into the modern world; added a bit of pizzazz.

For someone who slept on the pavement outside the Oval in order to make sure that I could get into the ground to watch the last day of the Test (and who caught Lindwall out while sitting on the grass just behind the boundary) the last thing that I want is to have my cricket ‘livened up’. For heaven’s sake, I don’t want it to be fun it should be deadly serious. Bradman didn’t exactly have a lot of pizzazz but the boy ‘done good’.

He tells me, and he apparently knows the founder member of the Army, that they are not a load of drunken yobs but a responsible group of fans who liaise with the Police wherever they travel in order to make sure that they don’t cause any problems, and that they are very popular with the English players. He tells me that they spend a great deal of money following the team around the world and should be congratulated on the support they give it.

I tell him that they are a nuisance to all those around them particularly with their incessant, inane chanting. I tell him that if I want to hear chanting I could go to watch Chelsea, if I could afford the price of the ticket. I tell him that they are the reason I no longer go to watch Test Match cricket, and turn the sound down when I am watching it on Sky Television. Sky Television , that’s another problem! Why on earth did we have to lose the best cricket coverage that ever came our way from Channel Four? I tell him that I find it hard to believe that the large waist-lines on view do not owe a considerable amount to an enthusiasm for the local brewery.

Which of us is right? I suppose if all cricket fans followed the game as I do, with a quiet ‘Well played’ and a warm hand clap (even a little leap in the air last year) the game would probably die a death in the next ten years, considering all the competition for attention that there is, and I wouldn’t be happy with that. I’m darned sure I’m never going to love them! So, maybe, I’ll have to learn to leave them?

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