Strangely it is all quiet on the Western Terrace at deserted Emerald Headingley

It was sometime during the late 1990s and I was walking to Sincil Bank to cover a match between Lincoln City FC and – if memory serves – Carlisle United.

This was long before the success-soaked Cowley era, of course (Messrs Danny and Nicky Cowley, now the management team at Huddersfield Town), so you could saunter into the ground not long before kick-off without having to first force your way through streets lined with supporters in the days when Lincoln drew gates of around 2,000 as opposed to 10,000.

But on this particular Saturday it seemed remarkably quiet for about 2.30pm – surreally so, in fact – with barely a car on the streets let alone anyone resembling a football supporter.

Anyway, I had just walked into the ground towards the main club offices when a voice called out: “Hey, where do you think you’re going?”

“Er, I’m just on my way to the press box,” I replied, turning towards a man who seemed to be a caretaker.

He surveyed me with a mixture of disdain and disbelief – as many have done over the years, in all fairness – and then suddenly burst out laughing.

“Not today you’re not,” he replied, tears of mirth practically rolling down his face.

“Why not?” I asked, mystified at his reaction.

“Match were called off this morning,” he guffawed.

“Waterlogged pitch.”

Memory of that mortifying episode returned to mind yesterday as I walked to Headingley cricket ground for what should have been the opening day of Yorkshire’s County Championship season.

The key difference on this occasion, of course, was that I knew in advance that the match against Gloucestershire was not going ahead; why, even journalists without the presence of mind to check Ceefax for winter football postponements have heard of Covid-19.

But in the interests of having sports pages to fill, it was deemed that it might be a good idea if I popped along anyway to see what was happening – or rather, what wasn’t happening.

So, armed with a letter of authority which states, in line with government guidelines, that journalists are key workers (just in case I was stopped by a policeman this time as opposed to a caretaker), I took a stroll around Yorkshire’s headquarters on an Easter Sunday in lockdown Britain.

Where better place to start than at the main club entrance on St Michael’s Lane.

Usually, at 10.30am on the first day of a Championship season, this place would be... well, perhaps not heaving, as this is the County Championship, after all, but certainly abuzz with activity as folk congregate excitedly and renew acquaintances with people that they might not have seen since last September.

Yesterday though, the only thing outside the main entrance was the curious sight of a large slice of burnt toast on the pavement – almost completely black, in fact, with an appalling bright yellow bit in the middle, presumably some sort of mould/fungus.

We don’t get paid much in this line of work (key workers don’t, you might have gathered, most notably our brilliant NHS staff), but, for the benefit of the tape, I resisted any temptation to take a quick bite in case it spoilt my lunchtime treat of beans on non-mouldy toast, washed down with tap water.

The main entrance, of course, was closed, with a black gate pulled across where the cars and spectators normally make their way in and out.

Indeed, the only indication that one was standing outside a cricket ground on a day when one should have been walking into one was a large picture on a nearby railing of England Test captain Joe Root punching the air in celebration, and another of his Yorkshire and England team-mate Jonny Bairstow in the midst of a passionate, fist-clenching roar.

Weather-wise, it was one of those typically pleasant spring days: warm enough to suggest that you didn’t need a coat in the watery sunshine, but cool enough to suggest that you probably did when out of that sunshine.

It was likely a bat-first day as I stood there at 10.30am, but, by the time that I had completed a slow circuit of the vicinity half-an-hour later and scribbled a few notes, one would perhaps have wanted to be bowling beneath skies that had clouded over a touch amid temperatures that had become just a tad muggier.

What struck me most as I continued along St Michael’s Lane – where the closed Ugly Mugs cafe opposite would normally be full of late-breakfasting Yorkshire fans and a certain H. D. Bird – was the loud and ubiquitous sound of birdsong.

I could hear collared doves, for example, their distinctive cooing as much the harbinger of a new season as the publication of the new Wisden almanac, sounds that you do not usually hear amid the buzz of activity and nearby traffic.

This time, the only traffic in-and-around the stadium was the odd police van (nothing changes there, then), plus the occasional taxi. On foot, there were several joggers around, with some of the show-off males running bare-torsoed to parade already fine-tuned physiques, and the usual collection of dog-walkers.

In fact, as I walked down towards Car Park F at the bottom of St Michael’s Lane, I was struck by the innumerable trails of dog urine which seemed to emanate from every lamppost/nook and cranny conceivable, the unmistakable calling cards of these wretched creatures or, to be more accurate, the dogs that they pull along with them which, quite often, pull them along instead.

Just before Car Park F, which was also closed off by a large black gate, I turned right on to the ginnel that runs all the way up to Kirkstall Lane on which the Headingley pavilion is housed, a good five-minute walk even for a fine-tuned, bare-torsoed sports journalist such as myself.

I can never walk along this ginnel – surely the longest in the world – without the ever-present fear that someone is sneaking up behind me (an angry dog-walker, perhaps) in confines from which there is little escape.

Even today, in lockdown Britain, there still manages to be one shifty-looking character seemingly on my trail as I walk on past the usual assortment of scattered graffiti, sundry detritus and obligatory discarded cans of Special Brew, which forever line this creepy place.

To say that it is always a relief to reach the top of the ginnel without having had your throat cut or a sharp dagger inserted between your shoulder blades is an understatement, and, suitably grateful, I made right again and walked towards the pavilion entrance, closer inspection of which revealed there to be a piece of paper in the window stating that the premises are being closely monitored by CCTV, which rather made me cut short my own close inspection.

So I continued on my merry way and, while preparing to turn right on to Cardigan Road to complete my circular tour, I reflected that the adjacent South Parade Baptist Church at the top of Cardigan Road was closed on what would normally have been one of its busiest days.

As readers may know, there is usually some sort of sign outside this church that combines Christianity and cricket, a play-on-words ostensibly designed to make the heathen motorist waiting at the traffic lights stop and think, if perhaps not disembark on the spot and immediately ask to be enrolled on the next Alpha course.

There were no thought-provoking signs on this occasion, though, or Easter Sunday worshippers in a Headingley locale which, in parts, put me in mind of emerging from a bunker after a nuclear attack to discover that the rest of humanity had been destroyed.

As I returned to my starting point, the main club entrance, I took a long, lingering look at the East Stand in the distance and wondered when I might set eyes on it again from inside the ground.

For on what should have been the opening day of the season, a happy day, a day filled with promise and hope for the coming months, it was instead a case of “Start Delayed” at Headingley and at county grounds everywhere.

And for who knows how long.

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James Mitchinson

Editor