A guided tour of Trent Bridge cricket ground (Trent Bridge - Nottingham)

Member Name: pje

Product:	Trent Bridge - Nottingham
Date:	02/08/01 (6167 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Possibly the greatest place on Earth

Disadvantages: Can be a bit windy.

Please allow me to take you on a guided tour of my second home...

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Let's start at the most prominent feature of the ground:

the office block
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In 1974 Nottinghamshire were in financial difficulties, so they sold
a corner of the ground to the County Council, and this is the result. Most people despise it, but as someone slightly too young to have visited Trent Bridge before it was there, it is an integral part of the ground to me. A unique feature. It also says something, it says:
this isn't some little ground out in the sticks, this is a city. Nottingham is a city, ok? Not some piddling little town somewhere north of Watford. Oops, my insecurity complex seems to be showing.
In front of the office block is another unique feature:

the scoreboard
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Sadly the construction of the office block entailed the demolition of the old Australian-style scoreboard (built in 1950) which displayed the full details of an innings. In it's place came the modern square scoreboard though, and what an unmistakeable marvel it is.

A quarter of a century after it was built it is still the most detailed scoreboard in the country. (Why haven't other grounds replaced their creaky, dilapidated looking, higgledy-piggledy scoreboxes?)
As a boy I even made my own version out of wood and cardboard!

Er, perhaps I'd better move on. So, continuing round anti-clockwise we come to the
magnificent edifice that is:


The Radcliffe Road Stand
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This £7.2m complex opened in 1998, and is an architectural tardis - in other words there's far more inside than seems possible from
the outside. Beneath the red lego turrets are five floors of facilities...
Ground Floor - Reception.
The Bodyline gym (telephone: 0115 982 3000 ext 271).
The Physiotherapy and Sports Injuries Clinic (0115 982 3038).

First Floor - Press boxes and hospitality boxes / study bedrooms.
There are twenty hospitality boxes (sixteen of which seat twelve people and four will accomodate twenty-four people).
These can be converted into study bedrooms allowing the stand
to be used as a residential training centre for up to fifty people.
The Press Box can also be used as a lecture theatre when there
is no cricket being played.

Second Floor - Dining room and TV commentary boxes.

Third Floor - The Middle Terrace - offers an excellent view, almost behind the bowler's arm (the media centre has the plum position
in that respect.) However, if you are planning to spend a day sitting in this stand, then be aware that as it faces south it is a sun-trap.

Fourth Floor - Radio commentary boxes and indoor nets.
An indoor cricket school squeezed in underneath the upper seating. There are six full-size indoor nets three of which have full length run-ups. The nets have also been used as a venue for Fencing.

Fifth Floor - The Upper Terrace - This is a very high vantage point, you are actually above roof-tops and so it offers fine panoramic views for miles around. Annoyingly this tier is only opened for big games, not the run-of-the-mil
l county matches I attend. [Mutters:
I don't care. It's all too posh for me anyway. I know my place.]

N.B. It is very difficult to see the main scoreboard and the replay screen from most parts of this stand.


Trent Bridge Inn [TBI]
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For many years Trent Bridge was the only bridge across the river
for miles, and as Nottingham was surrounded by walls and closed
to travellers at night, an inn was a necessity. Isn't that a fantastic excuse for building a pub?

William Clarke, the first captain and self-appointed manager of the Nottingham First Eleven, married the landlady of Trent Bridge Inn (a Mrs. Chapman - Mrs.? married before? in those days?!) in December 1837, he soon turned the adjoining ten acres of meadowland into a cricket pitch, and arranged for matches to be played here, instead of the Forest Recreation Ground in the city.

The club bought the freehold of both the ground and the inn in 1919, and then sold the pub to a brewery for the same amount.

An appeal on the 150th anniversary of Trent Bridge in 1988
raised the money to build a new stand in front of the inn
and upon its completion in 1990, it was named in his honour...


The William Clarke Stand
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An open air stand with a rather distant view,
you don't really feel involved with the action while sitting here.

Behind it is the Trent Bridge Shop which offers plenty of cricketing merchandise (books, clothing, etc.) but, being rather small, it can
be very
cramped when busy. There are also toilets, baby-changing facilities and a place to buy refreshments, so the occupants of this stand tend to include rowdy students more interested in the beer than the cricket.

Above it, the old Press Box has now been converted
into a state-of-the-art Go For IT computer training centre.
The seats beneath this box are at least sheltered from the rain!

For international fixtures, the giant TV replay screen is usually situated at the back of this stand.


On the Bridgford Road side of the ground there are two old double-decker stands. The seats in the lower tiers here are the main source of shelter from the rain for non-members. However, those at the back always seem to be filthy and are often covered in dead insects.

Parr Stand
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This stand, built in 1955, was named after George Parr.
Parr was known as the 'Lion of the North' because of his ferocious leg-side hits, which would often end up in the branches of a tree just outside the ground here. Sadly Parr's Tree, as it became known, blew down during a gale in January 1976.

The lower tier is designated 'alcohol free' for international matches, and there is a urinal behind/beneath this stand.


The West Wing Stand
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No sign of Martin Sheen here, it's just a two-tier stand (circa 1930).

At the rear are: the Trent Bridge Juniors cabin, which mainly peddles canned drinks and ice-cream; the St. John's Ambulance first aid point and a new toilet block.


The Pavilion [members only]
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The pavilion was built in 1886 at a cost of £5000. Twelve years later a second dressing room was built above the professionals' room. One day Notts hope to remodel the pavilion, in order to restore the symmetry lost by this change.

Inside is the long room where members can sit and watch the game through the windows in comfort, but without being able to HEAR the action. I find this leaves me feeling peculiarly dislocated from the game. You are near the bar though. (The walls of which are adorned with more than one hundred old bats.)

The Pavilion also houses a library of about 7,000 cricket books.
The collection was initiated by a donation of 3,000 books in 1978.
However, it will soon be moved to a new home in the squash club complex behind the pavilion.

And going round the back of the Pavilion brings us to...


The Hound Road Stand
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Built in 1993, it was immediately nicknamed the Madonna Stand
(by me) because of its two pointy turrets (this was not long after *that* video for Vogue.) Inside, the stairways are adorned
by framed photographs of former Notts. players in action.

Ground floor - seats at the front (a few of which are under cover)

First floor - The Derek Randall Banqueting Suite - a wonderful place to eat a meal, with a lovely view of the ground. It can be hired for wedding receptions and suchlike, and will accomodate 230 people for a sit-down meal or 300 for a buffet. For further details contact the Sales Co-Ordinator on 0115 945 5321 (or Fax 0115 981 9918).

Second Floor - public conveniences.

Third Floor - Upper level sea
ting, very popular with the cognoscenti.
i.e. This is where I'm usually to be found when Notts are playing.
An excellent view of the cricket, scoreboard (and replay screen).


The Larwood & Voce Tavern Stand [members only]
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Built in 1985, this open air stand faces the sun late in the day and offers a lazy view of the cricket (from long on/off/fine leg/third man.)
A good place to sit if you want to doze off after a drink and a chant.

The ground staff operate from here, as their equipment is housed underneath the stand. Incidentally, during the winter new automatic outfield covers were installed in trenches down this side of the ground. Personally I'm still sceptical about their value, since there remains the problem of mopping up the rain-water that collects
on them before they can be removed and play can re-start.


Fox Road Stand
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For international matches a temporary stand is erected on the Fox Road car park, but plans are afoot to build a permanent stand here during the winter, increasing the ground capacity from just over 13,000 to 15,400.

And that brings us back to where we started.
I'm sure there are a lot of things I've forgotten and will add when they occur to me, but for now, just a few more odds and ends...


Miscellaneous
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Trent Bridge suffers quite badly from the wind. This is not due to the players being served beans for lunch and prunes for tea, it's just that it is fairly exposed to the elements, and the wind whips round the empty stands something rotten. Also, as I've said, the number
of seats which are under cover is quite limited.

There is disabled access to all areas of the ground
apart from the upper levels of the West Wing and Parr stands.


History
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Trent Bridge hosted its first Test Match in June 1899 when England played Australia in what was W.G. Grace's last, and Wilfred Rhodes' first, Test Match. Both men played Test cricket at the age of fifty.

In the past Trent Bridge has been a venue for athletics, hockey, lacrosse, bike racing, and even pigeon shooting and rabbit coursing!

Ground Regulations
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The following items are banned from being brought into the ground during international matches:- glass bottles; flags or banners which contain poles or sticks; whistles, drums & other musical instruments.

Tickets
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Next year's international fixtures at Trent Bridge are:-

England v Sri Lanka
NatWest Series floodlit one-day international:
Thursday 27th June 2002, play starts at 2:30pm.

England v India
Second npower Test Match:
Thursday 8th - Monday 12th August 2002.

Tickets go on sale to members from August 14th, 2001,
and to everyone else from September 3rd, 2001.
Seats in the areas reserved for members go on sale on October 1st.

Pri
ces for the floodlit international range from £25 in the lower tier of Parr Stand and the William Clarke stand, to £47 in the Radcliffe Road Stand (told you it was posh!) For children under 16 tickets cost £10, and seats in the members-only areas are £20.

Prices for the Test Match range from £23 (Parr lower tier) to £47 (Radcliffe Road middle tier). Prices drop to £17-£35 for the Sunday.
For children under 16 a ticket for any area costs £10 (£5 on Sunday)
and seats in the members-only areas are £20 (£15 on Sunday).
Every ticket for Sunday's play includes a FREE ticket for the Monday… …should there be any play on the Monday that is!

Trent Bridge Ticket Hotline: 0870 168 8888

http://www.trentbridge.co.uk

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