I HAVE A DREAM...

Could Lincs one day 'do a Durham'?

By Nigel Fisher (clearly in need of a reality check)

County champions...providing regular players for England...staging international matches at their magnificent purpose-built ground. Such is life at thriving Durham County Cricket Club these days.
But turn the clock back to the 1988 season and we find Durham losing by 60 runs at home to Lincolnshire in the Minor Counties Knockout Cup.
Back then, Durham had yet to gain first class status - it was a few years into the future - while Lincs were a pretty decent Minor Counties outfit under the leadership of Lincoln Lindum stalwart Harry Pougher.
Yet, in the intervening 21 years, Lincs have failed to improve their standing in the game.
Prompted in the early 1990s by press speculation (guess who?) about whether Lincs might one day "do a Durham", there were a few suggestions over perhaps establishing a top county ground/academy at, or near, the Lincolnshire Showground site (just north of Lincoln). But you can guess what's happened since.
County cricket clubs need big money to do what Durham have done - and, it's said, a major fan base/nearby population to draw on. What they also need is a massive amount of ambition.
Lincolnshire County Cricket Club - just like Durham in the 1980s - is without a central ground to call its own. Indeed, when (for reasons of sponsorship in the era of long-serving Neil Hamilton's chairmanship) Lincs played all championship home games at Grantham for a spell there was much mumbling among the membership - me included!
If you'd asked me in 1988 which of the Minor Counties might one day make the progression to first class status, I'd have told you Northumberland - based in Newcastle and with a superb Jesmond ground, home to what they call up there The County Club.
Now I had my critics within Lincolnshire CCC when covering matches - home and away - for the press. But whether the publicity was good, bad and sometimes a little ugly for the county hirearchy to digest, it was at least publicity. And it reached thousands of folk in the northern half of our huge county, week after week during the summer. For when you go looking for sponsorship, any company will demand to know how much media coverage a given brand is receiving before it even considers signing a cheque.
It could be seen as unfair to say Lincolnshire County Cricket Club has stood still in the past 20 years - it hasn't when compared to other Minor Counties.
However, if we make comparisons with the strides - or leaps - taken by Durham, clearly there is no comparison.
I'd like nothing more than to one day spend my well-earned retirement watching Lincolnshire play four-day County Championship matches at a purpose-built ground, near the Lincolnshire Showground site - and see them beat Durham once again.
1988 Minor Counties KO Cup at Sunderland: Lincs 170 (Guy Franks 67, Dave Marshall 29), Durham 110 (Ashok Patel 41, Nigel Illingworth 3-10, Jim Griffiths 3-26, Rick Burton 2-23, Dave Marshall 1-11, Neil French 1-29).