Cricket lovers will know that Dougie Brown has been appointed as Warwickshire County Cricket Club's new Director of Coaching.
Years ago, when he was at the height of his playing career, I interviewed him for The Cricketer magazine. I was delighted, in the last few weeks, to have the opportunity to write another article on him. I wasn't able to do the interview but I wrote it up for Deep Extra Cover website - see here
I remember that when I did the original interview, Dougie invited me to sit on the players' balcony at Edgbaston during a match whilst he talked to me. As I sat there, I couldn't help but look across at what is now the Eric Hollies stand. It used to be called the Rea Bank and was just an area of rather basic open wooden seating. In my imagination, I could see a little 9 year old boy sitting there with his mother, enthralled at seeing his first ever proper game of cricket. The weather was cloudy, the cricket was slow but he didn't care. That little boy was, of course, me; and I concluded that, had he been able to see his older self sat on that balcony, he would have turned cartwheels with joy.
I'm looking forward to the coming cricket season and the opportunity to write more Warwickshire-based articles for Deep Extra Cover. I just hope that, in doing so, I can, in my senior years, re-create at least a little of that sense of wonder and excitement that consumed me as I sat on the Rea Bank on that day so long ago.
