Lives in Cricket No 29 - AN Hornby

53 Of the fans he wrote: ‘They are very partial to the local men. When one of their own hit a fourer [sic] or did a smart piece of fielding the applause was loud and long. When one of us did likewise the silence was profound.’ But Horan might have been viewing Lancashire’s HQ with red rose-coloured spectacles, for his remarks were totally at odds with a reader of the locally-based City News who wrote in that newspaper in 1877: ‘The accommodation at Old Trafford is notoriously meagre in the extreme; the handsome  pavilion will accommodate a mere handful; and as for refreshment - well, the less said the better…  it must indeed be an enthusiast who will encounter a nine-hour imprisonment in the bleak and comfortless Old Trafford cricket ground.’ Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. Married to Sport