The John Player League, cricket and Valentines Park.

The John Player League, cricket and Valentines Park.

The late and great John Arlott allegedly once described Valentines Park, in Ilford, Essex as one of the prettiest county cricket grounds in the country. Arlott of course was always a connoisseur, a wine connoisseur, a discerning observer of all the modern movements and trends so was perhaps best judged to pass comment on the good things in life, the arts and crafts, the timeless beauties of cricket and all of the batsmen and bowlers who came before his critical eye.

So it is that on the last day of May that our thoughts turn to one of Arlott's great loves, the John Player League on a Sunday afternoon when summer's musical cadences drifted through the warm and caressing breezes of the afternoon serenity. Of course Arlott loved the cut and thrust of the five day Test match, the feisty, frisson of its fiercely competitive edge but he also had a great deal of time for the biff and bash of the John Player League, the 40 or 50 over run chase excitement that preceded Sunday evensong, the late call of the magpie, kingfisher, the gull or the swooping Canadian geese.

In the old days when BBC Two had all of Sunday afternoon to itself, the John Player League represented a light, late lunchtime aperitif just after Family Favourites with Jean Challis and Cliff Michelmore on the radio. Then, two sets of strapping and virile gentlemen from the finest that English county cricket could offer, bounded down the pavilion steps, white shirts billowing like sails on a catamaran, thick white pads firmly strapped to their ankles, batsmen's caps perched daintily on their heads and bats swinging rapidly and purposefully, arms windmilling at a fair rate of knots.

Then the fielding side would emerge as well, bowlers frantically stretching their arms and shoulders, pulling and snapping their fingers as if their lives depended on it. Then they would arch their backs somewhat awkwardly at first but then find comfort in the knowledge that their day's labours might yield the fruits of victory at roughly 6pm just before the pubs opened. The John Player League was, essentially all about the fun of it all, the knockabout nature of cricket that never took the competition seriously but still had a rip- roaring day of jollity to remember and cherish long after the last Sunday hymn.

But for those of us who grew up in the leafy, bucolic idyll of Essex Valentines Park still meant much more than a Sunday John Player League match against equally as rustic Hampshire, warm- hearted Worcestershire, lovely Leicestershire, stockbroker belt Surrey or the seaside, coastal delights of Sussex. It was about BBC commentator and ex- professional Peter Walker sidling up to a microphone at just after two in the afternoon and announcing the two teams who had now been primed for this mini- festival of cricket.

Then the heavily jumpered umpires would slowly trundle their way to the crease, pennies in their pockets, shirt and tie neatly adjusted, white coated and black trousered, models of the utmost impartiality and neutrality but nonetheless wise figures of authority, calm, detached from the afternoon's action but still engaged in the game's atmosphere and meaning.

With all the slips and gullies in their right position, mid on and off lengthening their stride to deep backward square leg and a string of cover fielders guarding the central areas of the cricket strip, cricket takes off its hat once again and allows the afternoon to take its course. John Lever or Keith Fletcher would be deep in earnest discussion about the price of apples and then admired the stature of a Basil D'Olivera tapping his bat thoughtfully on the crease and then sweeping away some irritating dust in his eyes.

Then the runs would flow, singles, twos, hasty threes, boundary fours and then the magisterial sixes into the local supermarket car park. Lever would plough a lone furrow, thundering in from one end of  Valentines Park like a man possessed. Then the arms and shoulders would seemingly open up to their widest extent and the ball would be delivered from its highest point with a splayed action. Wickets would clatter quite frequently and by the end of Essex's 40 over slog the opposition would always know that they'd been in a match.

Behind Valentines Park toffee box of a ground, you would find yourself in the midst of yet more mouth watering sights to behold. There would be and, to this day remains, the beautiful clock tower next to the relaxing boating lake with families of happy go lucky rowers. Then there is the exquisitely green bowling green where elderly gentlemen and women roll down that huge black bowling ball along grass that had quite obviously been lovingly preserved with the heaviest roller.

The bowling greens- since there is another at the other end of Valentines Park- are still there because bowling greens have always been there. Next to the bowling greens are a whole series of tennis courts with drooping nets and alarming cracks in the ground. These are reserved for both club players and whomsoever chooses to wield a racket for no price at all.

Now the eye focuses on the children's playing area, the swings, tunnels and roundabouts, the new exercise area, the relatively new black sign posts, the park cafe that seems to have been there since the Boer War. Doubling as an ice-cream parlour, the 99 and flake ice cream sign outside the cafe swings gently like a Wild West saloon door.

The long, meandering pathways lead to the bridge that leads to the boating lake and tall avenues of trees stand proudly in every available open green space. Then there are the hundreds of scurrying squirrels, more bobbing birds in secretive corners, the handsome Valentines Mansion which can tell stories from way back when, centuries of aristocratic families who were once an integral part of the Ilford landscape.

Sadly, the once immensely popular Valentines Park lido, a swimming pool of Olympian proportions, was demolished, flattened to make way for nothing at all. In the memorable summer heatwave of 1976, Valentines Park lido burst into life. In the mind's eye, the Valentines Park lido will always have a place in your youthful heart even though it is now nothing but grass, heather and bush which still has its aesthetic advantages if you're of a gardening type.

But you can still see hear the vivid splashing of the fountain inside the lido, the serried rows of light blue lockers, the screeching of the children, the running, dashing, chasing kids hurling themselves into a freezing tank of cold water that was the pool. The story was that the diving board had to be taken down because one of the kids had tragically died. Then there was the slide which always seemed to be heavily populated but was eventually dismantled as well because maybe it didn't quite have what the kids were looking for in an exciting day.

Half way through the afternoon when the feverish frenzy of the day may have been fading and burning out, the lifeguards sat comfortably on the railings, twirling their whistles endlessly, shouting and castigating those poor teenagers who just wanted to show off in front of their mates. The dive bombing into the pool had to be stopped immediately and if you were seen doing anything remotely unsavoury then you would be clipped around the ear by a local bobby. How we love the police.

Still here we are on the last day of May. Years ago Valentines Park used to be the venue chosen for Essex cricket club in a week long county championship round of games in the first week of June. Now even that's gone so now the ground has to make way for the local cricket club and that has to be ample consolation for those who still savour the game's grass roots.

Even more disappointingly and perhaps predictably the John Player League is no longer a cricketing pot of gold on a Sunday afternoon. John Arlott died in 1991 and somehow Sunday afternoons for many cricket fans will never be the same without its weekly fare of slogfest cricket and enthralling run chases before Sunday Night at the London Palladium hosted by Bruce Forsyth. Cricket loves its memories.