Chilly Cricket

Maybe it is the economic situation, maybe fear of the swine flu, but precious few people turned out for the first day of the Hampshire - Sussex county game yesterday. Which is sad, both for cricket and for the venue. Being an Essex man I wasn't there to support either team, I was more interested in seeing Hampshire's impressive county ground - the Rose Bowl - set in a leafy (and windy) spot in suburban Southampton.

The ground was opened in 2001 and cost a whopping £24 million which very nearly bankrupted Hampshire Cricket Club. It has something of the feel of an amphitheatre, surrounded by high fencing and towering floodlights, and features a handsome, canopied pavilion designed by Michael Hopkins and Partners (see below). Ground capacity is around 6,500 expanding to over 20,000 when temporary stands are erected, but to a non-member purchasing a £20 entrance ticket (okay, so I got it reduced to £15 because of my greying seniority) the facilities are pretty basic. Temporary structures house a burger bar, loos, a New Forest Ice Cream stall (excellent), a beer outlet (£3.50 for a pint of Marstons) and a Hampshire CC shop which doubles as the only outlet for scorecards.


In the same way as the older brother's beloved Ipswich Town FC has its reclusive millionaire, Marcus Evans, so The Rose Bowl PLC has its Rob Bromsgrove - a man who reacted to the ECB decision in 2006 not to accord the Rose Bowl test match status with a £35 million development plan to improve the ground and the traffic problems that go with it. The plans include a new, 176-room hotel, a press centre, grandstands and more, but yesterday there was little sign of great construction activity. Unlike Evans (£400 million), Bromsgrove does not make the Sunday Times Rich List so maybe he is even more reclusive, or, sadly, his fortunes might be ebbing away after his bold move to keep both Hampshire CC and the Rose Bowl project alive when they hit difficult times.

All I can say is "Good luck!". Running county cricket must be a pretty precarious business in this day and age. I just hope that Southampton's cricket ground doesn't go the way of its poor football club.