While the armada of small boats, social distress in Makerfield and the ghoulish resurrection of Tony Blair give the impression that England long ago dissolved into Yookay squalor, I want to reassure Daily Sceptic readers: this is not so. Deep England still hums away among the glory of the English countryside. If you are feeling despair about the decline of the nation, I urge you immediately to find your local village cricket team and get involved – for there, you will find the beloved beat of the nation’s heart.
“Beware of the bull!” read the sign along the fence. A whopper of a Herefordshire bull dozed lazily amongst the buttercups. We parked alongside the fence and carried our camping chairs to the edge of the adjacent cricket pitch. Two village under-13 teams were playing on a pitch nestled behind an 11th-century church and the manor house. Sixes are possible but rarely fours; the pitch inclines gently like a shallow dish and the balls roll hopefully towards the boundary before petering out and sliding back again. At matches such as this, for three or so hours, worries are suspended and the only reality concerns stacking up sufficient runs in the blazing heat. Bottles of water are poured on boys’ heads as they pad up and sweat it out scampering for one or two runs when possible. Fielders are shifted when the left-handed batsman comes on and everyone claps when he manages a six over his shoulder. When the ninth batsman trudges back with his third duck of the season he is greeted with nothing more than: “Bad luck.” Depending on the club, teas are lavish, consist of bacon baps and coffees, or warnings are issued beforehand that there is no tea, and sweaty snacks are eaten out of kit bags. There is often a mum who brings large batches of muffins or sliced watermelon to share.
Children’s village cricket training is usually a social event for the adults as well, if the village is large enough. Our club is lucky enough to train on the same day as ‘social tennis’ and the Brownies in the village hall. Afterwards everyone converges on the clubhouse for drinks and a BBQ at the “Ashes” – the sign, of course, felt-tip on cardboard. Aside from a new notice on the clubhouse wall with a densely typed list of ‘respect’ expectations from the ECB, village cricket is entirely woke-free. Boys and girls still wear whites. Coaches are all volunteers and manage to instil a spirit of fair play above anything else. When town teams turn up in coloured pyjama-style cricket gear there is a sigh of understanding that the competition may be rather stiffer than usual.
Men’s village cricket is the place to go to experience a slower kind of life. Our eldest ensured he was home from his gap year on an Australian cattle farm for the village summer cricket season. The team includes our middle son, an assortment of ages and occupations and whoever else can commit to 40 overs on a Saturday and 15 on a Tuesday evening. Banter is gentle and fitness optional. The more enthusiastic members of the team lean on their bats for a pre-match stretch. Our 11 year-old watched the other evening; they were a man down, so put him in as third leg.
What is most joyous about village cricket is, for me at least, seeing hidden corners of England that are only visited when a game is on. What3words is obligatory to find deep hedgerows with a fence post topped with a cricket ball to indicate the concealed entrance to the pitch. Last week, we travelled only miles away to an entirely hidden pitch where we were overlooked by an avenue of limes and an obelisk raised by a squire in memory of his son lost at Inkerman. At another club, a sign above the rudimentary clubhouse toilets, written on the back of a box of tea, read: “Beware: HORNETS.”
Memory maps of villages are formed, not geographically, but rather as the location of supreme sporting achievements: the six that hit the church door, the tumbling stop at the boundary, the miraculous one scored by the spin bowler famous for his ducks. There are 5,000 cricket clubs according to the England and Wales Cricket Board, with most clubs fielding numerous teams. Over 600 new girls’ teams and 550 new women’s teams have been set up. As with all sports, it is the ultimate social leveller: the lawyer being caught out by the mechanic. Pints are enjoyed afterwards, and the Pakistani groom, who is the best cricketer on the team, is asked at every round if he is absolutely sure he wants a Coke and not a Cruzcampo.
Restore faith in the lands and people of this great nation by joining a village cricket team: play, coach, learn to score, make teas, spectate. At moments when a pot-bellied farmer’s son reaches for an unlikely catch, and the shadows of the low-setting sun send streaks of pink through the poplars, it is possible to believe John Major when he said in 1993: “Fifty years from now, Britain will still be the country of long shadows on county cricket grounds.”
Joanna Gray is a writer and confidence coach.
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We’ve got a lovely ground in our Somerset village. Game on there yesterday, so had to walk the dog on his lead to stop him joining in.
Not only that – Somerset is resolutely and proudly monocultural, as is most of the South West.
Not for long.
Somerset councillors clash over asylum seekers in heated housing debate | Somerset Live
“For example, Somerset has been allocated 826 asylum accommodation bed-spaces – the third highest target in the south west – while also planning for arrivals under the Afghan resettlement programme. ”
Somerset homes to be bought by council for refugees – BBC News
I’m sure the cricketers appreciate dog walkers letting their dogs relieve themselves all over the cricket ground. Dog walkers always seem to gravitate toward sports grounds, beaches, and livestock pastures, ignoring “No Dogs” and “Keep Your Dog on a Lead” signs.
I enjoyed reading this although I don’t have any particular interest in cricket. It describes beautifully how different it feels when you get involved in a grass roots activity that has nothing to do with current oppressive political system.
I sell regularly at local car boot sales run in a field by the Bonfire Society, Scouts etc and there’s loads of banter and camaraderie between buyers and sellers and quite a few eccentrics. Gives me a rest from the doom for a day!
At last. Acknowledgement that the land of hope and glory is still here. Thank you. An endearing article full of the real world. The one we live in not the one the media(s) try and shove down our throats. Living in in a seaside town in the southwest, our large bowling club and large cricket club lie next to each other. Throughout the summer months one or the other has a fixture on. Lovely to participate, play, watch the colts on a Friday evening, while their parents have an evening off to meet up with friends for a chin wag or drink. Meanwhile at the bowling club the, mostly oldies continue to play a sport they love. Some ex golfers or tennis players or cricket players. They welcome newcomers, especially if they are under fifty. All in all, a joy for all those involved.
But how many of the “Deep England” villagers in this article and in your English town proudly fly their own National Flag of England? None, I would guess, because they’ve lost their bottle, and are actually afraid to fly their own National Flag of England, now only seen flying from Church of England towers, and at football matches (never cricket) and Patriot marches. This image shows the 4 National Flags of the 4 Nations of the UK, and the UK combined flag which needs altering to include the 4:
The Union Flag should be the central England flag with 4 smaller flags of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland filling the 4 white spaces around the Red Cross, not of the fictional “St. George”, but The Banner of the Lamb.
The current Union Flag ignores Wales and Northern Ireland, but falsely includes the “St. Patrick’s” flag of the Foreign Nation called The Republic of Ireland. This need to be changed.
The people striking willow on leather in the future are more likely to be Muslims who crossed the channel on small boats from Afghanistan, Iran, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Kuwait, Oman, Sri Lanka, Nepal, UAE, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Kenya, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Ghana, Malawi, Mozambique, Sierra Leone.
These are among the hundred or so cricket playing nations with a majority or significant minority Muslim population.
Of course not all of these countries have nationals coming to the UK on small boats – or at least that is what they tell our authorities. But then they get information via people involved in or linked via the charities helping anyone, which can include terrorists, to get into the UK, like Care4Calais set up by Clare Moseley who is directly linked to the head of the extreme Far Left Socialist Workers Party – Wayne Bennett. They are dedicated to the overthrow of our democracy and appear to pursue a typical Trotskyite playbook which the likes of Care4Calais seems to fit nicely – create division and disruption to cause destabilisation.
I was shocked to read years ago about all the Depraved Marxist Harpies flocking to “help refugees in Calais” by having sex with them, “teaching” them how to rape white women. Then there was this:
The farcical new twist in the Care4Calais saga: Charity boss’s jailbird lover has slipped into UK | Daily Mail Online
Care4Calais boss’s lover who she met in camp slipped into Britain and had baby | UK | News | Express.co.uk
“The married Mrs Moseley, 52, also controversially began a romance with a migrant nearly twenty years her junior, despite her own charity’s no sex with migrants policy.”
“The Daily Mail revealed this week that the migrant in question – Tunisian Mohamed Bajar – has managed to slip into Britain and had a baby with another woman.” [a Romanian]
“The open romance, which sparked outrage among volunteers, ended in 2017 amid claims that Mr Bajar had tried to con Mrs Moseley out of money.
However, the 34-year-old Tunisian is now happily living in the UK after settling in Bolton, Greater Manchester.”
Here is a shocking more recent news story:
“SUE REID: How the middle-class mum who set up controversial charity accused of fuelling the migrant crisis has intriguing ties to a top Socialist Workers Party agitator” 17 December 2025
Sadly it is now behind a paywall on the Mail Online.
Clare Moseley who set up Care4Calais is in cahoots with the extreme Far Left Socialist Workers Party and their leader Wayne Earl Bennett and set up and runs with him the covert SWP front “Love Music Hate Racism” – a way the SWP leader has discovered of monetising racism to fund the SWP etc.
So Care4Calais was not all done out of the goodness of her heart for migrants but appears to be a way of destabilising the UK with unlimited illegal migration.
Stand Up to Racism is also a covert SWP front. They run it whilst making it look like a broad coalition of anti-racism supporters. They make a lot of money out of SUTR which is why, even when there is no evidence of any “Far Right” they have to keep making up a “Far Right” to keep the money rolling in.
It is a version of the Trotskyite agenda – here hijacking and monetising seeming moral issues to pursue the goal of destabilising the UK’s social structures, politics and economy.
Good points. It also seems part of the Communist “Cloward-Piven Strategy” to use Mass Third World Invasion to overwhelm the welfare systems and infrastructure of the West, causing total collapse, in order to allow Communist Traitors to rebuild the West in their own image. Just like the Communist Fabian logo of Fabians smashing the globe with sledgehammers. Lo & behold Fabian Tony Blair crawling out of the woodwork again…
“to allow Communist Traitors to rebuild the West in their own image”.
The flaw in the plan is that the Islamists and not the Far Left will take over. Like Iran when the Mullahs, Left and others overthrew the Shah, the Islamists will slaughter the Left to remove the competition.
The Greens are a means to an end for the Islamists. The Greens prove the Islamists can win elections in the UK.
Very informative post!
Reassuring? Well sure – in the same way that a cancer patient given six months to live looks healthy at the time of diagnosis. The cancer is growing and will soon kill the patient. Simple as..
I live in the west country. When I moved here 10 or so years ago it still looked like the England of my childhood, albeit with a bit more traffic.
It is rapidly being “enriched” by representatives from the 3rd world. And the lanyard class are determined to make the countryside “welcoming to migrants” by forcing them on us.
Deep England is not alive and well. It is being dismantled just as our towns and cities were.
Spot on! Years ago I read that the elderly widow of a British Army veteran admitted selling her remote cottage in Cornwall to a Pakistani group, because they offered her several times more than it was worth. It was the thin end of the wedge, and no doubt happening all over the country.
My village team never had a third leg, is it a new position?
I don’t want to know where I have to look for England, it should be everywhere I go in my country.
Excellent point.
Meanwhile take a look at the England and Wales Cricket Board’s latest Raising the Game Bulletin, circulated to clubs up and down the land…
https://ecb-comms.co.uk/cr/AQjKjAQQieKxBxiXi6zdBTD_5KRCeVGuNsH_Aw8tLs0i5USPbq4tqjIi-ScW5_3MrxYoSkU
…Upcoming in June: LGBTQ+ Pride Month, Social Mobility Day, World Refugee Week, Al Jirah / Muharram (Islamic New Year), National Windrush Day.
Another institution marched through, captured and paraded chanting from the DIE prayer mat.
They should change “National Windrush Day” to “Windrush Illegal Human Trafficking Day” to be more accurate.
I recognised many years ago the countryside was the place to be, so worked extremely hard for 40 years to buy my rural home.
I coached youth cricket at club, district and county level here in the sticks, a real joy and some great times.
Be in no doubt England still exists. The MSM, government and blob will never beat us.
There are more of us than them and they’re terrified of us.
But who owns most of the village shops now? Ethnic Indian Subcontinentals. Having taken over so many large UK cities, they are branching out into the countryside. Their march is relentless. “Give them an inch and they will take a mile.”
Just as almost every motel in America is now owned by one Ethnic Indian family named “Patel”, with an unfortunate drop in standards of hygiene. How did that happen in only a few decades?
“Gujaratis own over forty-two per cent of the hotel business in the United States, and Patels own eighty to ninety per cent of the motels in American small towns. Here’s why.”
How Gujarati Patels Took Over America’s Motels | Madras Courier
The truly creepy thing is that they now refer to themselves as “American Indians”, completely taking over the term used for centuries to refer to the Indigenous Ethnic Oriental tribes who first settled the North American continent.
Nice, apart from the fact that property in The English Countryside is monstrously expensive. In my opinion, it stopped representing value for money a long time ago. Sorry.
The price of cricket club insurance is crazy, too.
I can hear a match going on at the bottom of the garden – there’s a small cricket club over the back fence.
It seems idyllic for now but in a few decades time it will be rarer and in a few centuries time they will not be serving beer after the matches.
Go and look at a primary school class anywhere. What you see will vary according to where you are, but in many places you will see no white people. Other races and cultures also enjoy cricket, but it won’t be England, any more than the USA is in any way representative of the various cultures that were there before it was colonised, or Australia is representative of aboriginal culture.
Well and bravely said, Transmission! The whole essay smacks of “Real England is better than Working Class Football Oiks”, and was completely ruined by two sentences:
“When town teams turn up in coloured pyjama-style cricket gear there is a sigh of understanding that the competition may be rather stiffer than usual.”
“the Pakistani groom, who is the best cricketer on the team” [though he has a rather intense physical attraction to horses… a cultural thing, you see]
NO, Joanna, Ethnic Indian Subcontinentals do NOT play cricket better than the Englishmen who invented it. They are only better at cheating, and getting Weedy Wet Liberal Women, who are The Bane of the West, to lick their boots in a frenzy of virtue-signalling.
Approximately 80,000 to 85,000 British, Indian, and Australian troops became prisoners of war (POWs) following the Fall of Singapore on February 15, 1942
Why and how did that happen?
“The British had a dismissive, racist view of the Japanese military, assuming they were physically and mentally inferior.” As such, the chaps underestimated the enemy and chose to play cricket at the Patang Cricket Ground, instead of getting ready for the imminent attack.
The golf club refused to allow the army to dig trenches on their course.