Childhood Memory

The most vivid childhood memory was when I was selected for a trial with Middlesex County Cricket Club.

Up to that stage cricket had been my life. That's all I ever wanted to be, a professional cricketer. I would often dream of striding elegantly across the perfectly cut lawn of Lord's Cricket Ground, in my creased ironed whites, bat in hand, ready to do battle with the fastest bowlers in the world. I never wore a helmet in my fantasy as those were only for cissies. The only armoury I needed was the piece of oak in my hands.

I would produce the most fantastic and flamboyant of shots to all parts of the ground. Whatever they bowled to me, whether bouncers, inswingers, outswingers, full tosses or even yorkers, each ball which hurtled in my direction would be dispatched off my bat at twice the speed to the boundary. I was treating the most gifted of bowlers with utter disdain and contempt. My dream would eventually come to a close when my score was on 94 and with the last ball before lunch I would conjure up the most outrageous of shots, a straight six out of the stadium, to reach my century. I would walk off the pitch to a standing ovation, with my bat held aloft. My walk would be slow and deliberate in order to bathe in the applause from the adoring public. It was if I had come back from a victorious battle and my cricket bat was a samueri sword with which I had conquered the enemy. Somewhat melodramatic but I was only twelve at the time and I thought all things were possible.

The night before the trial I couldn't sleep. I was full of nervous energy. I wanted to be the best cricketer there but doubts kept creeping in my mind that maybe, just maybe, I wasn't as good as I thought I was. However, I quickly dismissed these unpleasant notions.

The following morning I travelled the short bus distance to the ground. I was in confident and ebullient mood. I felt I was meeting my pre-ordained destiny. I imagined folk songs would be written about me extolling my virtues on the cricket field. I envisaged portraits of myself hanging in the National Gallery, long after I was dead. Blue plaques would be liberally dotted around the country by English Heritage to indicate where I was born, where I died, what restaurants I frequented and even what public loos I used. The plaque would simply be inscribed `The great man was here'. And everybody would instantly know who it was: Noel Winston Neville Gladstone Disraeli Reggae Graffie. It sounds absurd today but again I can only put it down to my youth.

It very soon dawned on me that the cream of the country's young cricketers was here sharing the same ambitions and dreams as myself. I felt I was an excellent player but compared to my contemporaries at the trial I was a Scunthorpe to their Man United. I was out of my league. A sickening feeling came over me which began in the pit of my stomach as if someone had kicked me in the testicals and they had permanently lodged in my throat. It was that defining moment that I brutally realised that my world had fallen around me and that however hard I tried I would never become a top-flight professional cricketer.

For several weeks I was inconsolable. My parents tried in vain to cheer me up, insisting that this was not the end, I could try other clubs. But I knew in my heart that the same result would occur. I had to face the fact that I was simply not good enough.

Since that inauspicious day in my life, over 25 years ago, I have never actually picked up a cricket bat in anger. I reckoned that if I could not play at the very top I would not want to participate at all. I occasionally watch the odd test match on television and I still sometimes dream that I am batting for England and scoring a century at Lord's. But now I know it is only a dream, never to be fulfilled, a mere childhood memory.