An epic, epic day. we parked at Maldon tube station at the bottom of the northern line, finding some nice cheap parking. The trip up by car had taken far too many hours and the journey by tube was 1 hour so we ended up arriving at lords just as play began. unfortunately we had to queue for tickets. it didn’t seem that long so we walked down to find the end of it. then we turned the corner and the damned queue continued for miles. several corners later we found the end. thankfully it moved pretty quickly and took only half an hour.

we paid our 10 quid and sat in the upper compton stand to the left (or right, depending on how u look at it) of the press centre.

Tresco, as we’d heard when in the queue, was out, but although butcher was looking nervous, strauss (sp) was in pretty good nick.

Anyway, brilliant sunshine and a great atmosphere made for a great final day to the test. England winning helped as well.

ps.

during a drinks break a group of loutish fans in the stand to our right started chanting “81 81 81” in the way that Enger-land is usually chanted at footy matches. 81 being the number of the steward in front of them. a rival group of louts started doing the same, but this time, “93 93 93”, the number of their steward. Both stewards clearly embarrassed. This continued for a while, with more and more people joining in to each successive chant. to my surprise, our section joined in, tom shouting with the best of them. “eightyone eightyone eightyone, eightyone eightyone eightyoooone, eightyone eightyone eightyooone, EIGHTYONE!” needless to say, i remained seated and refrained from such behaviour.