Real ale and Schrodinger’s membership | a Lancashire v Derbyshire match report

4 minute read

Send your match reports to king@kingcricket.co.uk. We’re only really interested in your own experience, so if it’s a professional match, on no account mention the cricket itself. (But if it’s an amateur match, feel free to go into excruciating detail.)

A P Webster writes…

Am I a Lancashire member? Well, to be honest, I’m not really sure. I am something called a Lite member (sadly not a description of my current BMI). This is a sort of Schrödinger’s membership: I got priority, and a discount, on tickets for the Test against India, and I get the members’ newsletter (which so far in 2025 has mainly consisted of apologies), but I don’t have a membership card to wave around and only get two free days of Lancashire cricket this year.

As such, deciding upon which days to attend requires a bit of selectiveness. Key factors taken into account when deciding on this particular day to use up 50 per cent of my complimentary county cricket credits were:

• The weather forecast 
• The likelihood of the cask beer bar being open
• The relative possibility of watching Sir James Anderson bowl at three stumps throughout the day, as opposed to bowling at a single stump during the lunch break
• The availability of a Possibly Tautological Work Colleague (PTWC) with a similar allocation of sort-of membership days (but, crucially, also a plastic membership card) to use up

Factors not taken into account included:

• Are Lancashire any good at cricket at the moment?

PTWC lives out in the wilderness of the Stockport council region (almost in Derbyshire, as it happens) so was going to be a bit later getting there. Seat selection duties therefore fell to me. After searching in vain for a designated cask ale bar to pick a seat near, I settled for the seats under The Point but near the old pavilion, which affords a good angle.

Following PTWC’s arrival, we worked through our respective packed lunches (My decision to use wholegrain rye bread for my sandwiches is one I slightly regret. The consistency wasn’t quite right, but fortunately the classic combination of pastrami, emmental, gherkin and American mustard stood up to the challenge), before embarking on a circuit of the ground during the lunch break. Sadly, this circuit confirmed that there was in fact no cask ale bar in operation. PTWC’s consultation with Untappd – a sort-of Instagram for beer – suggested that cask beer was available somewhere though, most likely in the members’ bar. There was nothing for it; we were going to have to test the status of our respective sort-of-memberships.

It turns out that PTWC’s possession of a plastic membership card was sufficient not only to gain access to the bar but also to obtain a 10 per cent discount (which is perhaps strange given that almost by definition everyone in that bar should be entitled to the discount). This allowed access to the so-called ‘Holy Trinity’ of Old Trafford ales: Dizzy Blonde, Two Hoots and MPA.

Having gained access to the hallowed members’ area (PTWC through his possession of the requisite bit of plastic, me through mere proximity and a genuine ambiguousness as to whether I was allowed to be there or not), we remained there for most of the afternoon session before moving somewhere a little more shaded shortly before an early tea and that most civilised of things, a wander round the outfield.

Many of those in attendance were keen to observe a certain 40-something warming up prior to bowling from the end named after him, so a cluster formed around one side of the field, leaving plenty of room for the standard impromptu small games of cricket to take place elsewhere. One small child got a bit overzealous and invaded part of the square, but was swiftly dealt with – as was a group of Posh Lads on a Posh Lads’ Day Out attempting what they were calling a ‘dedication’ (some sort of drinking ritual for Posh Lads, which was verboten on the outfield due to the dangers of contaminating the Old Trafford pitch with mid-strength lager).

After the evening session (which we watched from the members’ area, allowing for tabs to be kept on the FA Cup final through the noises from the members’ bar that indicated when noteworthy match events were occurring), there was a busy-but-fine tram back into central Manchester and a couple of additional beers, with evidence of at least one (possibly more) of these being available to view on Untappd for those in the know.

After seeing PTWC back to the station, I considered my evening sustenance options and given the lateness of the hour elected to make a quick purchase from a fast food outlet. The food was not especially fast, but the wait did allow me to be complimented on my Booths tote back (slogan: Have We Got Brews For You) by a fellow late night sustenance-seeker who was familiar with the Lancashire grocer known to some as ‘Nature’s Waitrose’ but who was sadly unaware that they were not exclusively a Lake District operation.

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