RISING COST OF CRICKET

We are not having a dig at the ECB, but myself (and most other umpires) have just received, by post, a colourful catalogue outlining the range of cricket equipment being marketed under the banner of our governing body. I note it now costs the best part of £50 for a pair of batting gloves.
Just as well I retired when I did (six years ago)!
My second-hand Newberry bat lasted the best part of 15 years and saw me to the end of an uneventful career. It still comes out of the garage for the annual August bank holiday charity match and for Brigg Grammar Old Boys v Sir John Nelthorpe School (now my only two guaranteed appearances).
Prior to getting the Newberry from "our kid" when he retired, I only bought two other bats - both Slazengers - in 30 years. The second (one of those you had to linseed) split down the middle while I was playing a typical forward defensive prod. The other was one of the early breed of coated bats, and came in a plastic sleeve saying it was used by the likes of Gary Sobers, Rohan Kanhai and Zaheer Abbas.
I'm old enough to remember when players didn't own their own kit; there was a communal supply in a bag, belonging to the club. The youngest players got given the pads missing the buckles (no Velcro straps!).
At the height of my wealth in the mid-1980s (before Mrs F and the three kids came along, in that order) I was covering Minor Counties cricket, home and away, and decided to buy one of those impressive new "coffins" used by Lincolnshire Minor Counties squad members, such as my good mates Richard Leslie Burton (RM) and Dave Marshall (SLA).
I think Dick got me a good deal through one of his many contacts and I proudly took it along to Brocklesby Park for a friendly, only to find the box duly banished from the admittedly small "home" changing room, with the instruction never to bring it again, as it took up far too much space. So I sold it on to batsman Paddy Kenny, then playing for Appleby-Frodingham; he had it for many years.
Earlier, Brigg Town 2nd X1's pads and bats used to be stuffed into a black dustbin bag and squeezed into the boot of my Mini 1000 for away games. It really was cricket on a shoestring at that time, as far as our club was concerned.
Clearly, enough players today are prepared to pay approaching £50 for a pair of batting gloves. If that's the going rate, fair enough. There's some very impressive kit on offer in the ECB catalogue, and anyone would be proud to own it.
But back in the 1970s and 1980s the club's total outlay on kit for the entire season wouldn't have come to anywhere near fifty quid, including match balls!
These days all young players seem to have a mobile phone hanging off their ear in the pavilion; when I started in Lincs club cricket in the mid-1970s we (like many households) didn't have a phone in the house, never mind a mobile. Once the selection committee had met in the designated pub, the captain, or secretary, would push a postcard through the door telling you of your selection for Saturday.
A number of clubs operated the policy that you had to buy a copy of the local paper (daily or weekly) to find out if you'd been picked, as they merely submitted the teams for inclusion on the sports pages and left it at that.
The game's certainly changed!