The Grace connection: A trip to Nottinghamshire very rarely disappoints

HUW TURBERVILL: The weather was incredible, the food and drink ticked all the boxes and the company was exceptional, of course

‘150 Years of Grace at Nottingham’. How I chuckled. I read the story about WG and the 150th anniversary of his first appearance at Trent Bridge on Nottinghamshire’s website. A special exhibition was being held. It was in the same week that my daughter, Grace, was starting at Nottingham University.

The opportunity to enlighten her about the brilliant and bewhiskered allrounder whom she was named after – yes, really, my wife liked it without realising the cricket connection – was too good to be true.

Initially, my offer to take Grace to the match against Yorkshire was spurned by her. And to be honest it did seem a bit daft me going up to see her only three days after her mother had driven her and her kit up to the university.

When it became apparent what she had left behind in South London, however (an ID card, a favourite top, a wastepaper bin!) my offer suddenly appeared more enticing to her.

Especially as I offered to buy her a bumper lunch at the Wetherspoons pub near the ground (youngsters love a bit of ‘Spoons’ for its affordable food and drink).

After I collected her at her wonderfully scenic campus (Highfields Lake is especially stunning), we made the 15-minute trip to West Bridgford, home of one of the loveliest county grounds of them all. 

It’s been a few years since I was there actually, but it hasn’t changed that much from when I sat behind Andrew Strauss’ wonder catch to dismiss Adam Gilchrist in the 2005 Ashes (in fact it’s still similar to the one that I thought looked so exquisite when I first properly registered it, in the 1983 World Cup).

Nottingham and Yorkshire clashed during a sun-soaked September week

I had heard great things about the Larwood and Voce pub (thinking that this was the Wetherspoons one). And it is pleasant indeed. Alas, the lack of vegetarian options on the menu was unappealing for Grace, however.

There was also a lack of cricket memorabilia on the walls, the lady who works there saying that they had recently had a redesign.

However, we did discover, up a flight of stairs, direct access to the ground and we enjoyed our drinks in the wonderful reading room and Larwood and Voce Stand. It was a terrific view.

Still famished, though, we then walked around the ground to the Trent Bridge Inn, which offered the traditional Wetherspoons set-up. Burgers, chips, nachos and halloumi gave my daughter the strength for her maiden pilgrimage into the ground.

Unfortunately despite cricket being responsible for her name and my obsession, Grace has taken little interest in the game over the last 18 years. 

So as I watched the Nottinghamshire seamers trying to make inroads into Yorkshire’s second innings, after the visitors’ feeble capitulation in the first, Grace tuned in to an online lecture on her phone. The wonders of Brett Hutton and Dane Paterson toiling with the ball against Adam Lyth and George Hill played second fiddle to an introductory quiz on her history and American studies.

We never did see the ‘150 Years of Grace at Nottingham’ exhibition which, if I’m honest, did sound a little tenuous. After all, WG never played for Nottinghamshire. In the match in question in 1871, he was 23, playing for Gloucestershire, and he scored 79 in the first innings and 116 in the second.

All the factory hands downed tools to see him in action – resulting in bumper crowds of 8,000 on the first day and 12,000 on the second. The match was also notable for him filling in as wicketkeeper because of an injury to James Bush. Notts still won by 10 wickets, though, with left-arm quick Jemmy Shaw taking 13 for 163.

To be honest it was just enough to be there in the last week of the LV=Insurance County Championship. The weather was incredible, the food and drink ticked all the boxes and the company was exceptional, of course. The icing on the cake was an encounter with the legend who is Derek Randall, who I got to know while covering Suffolk in the Minor Counties in 1998.

I think Grace can expect a few more such visits over the next few years.