How cricket, football learned to co-exist in harmony

Autumn is fast approaching in the Western world, a season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, according to the English poet John Keats. It also marks the end of the cricket season in England and Wales, as the final first-class matches ended on Sept. 29.

It is a month later than it used to be in my boyhood. Then, there was a fairly clear demarcation between summer and winter sports.

Sixty years ago, the 1964 first-class cricket season began on May 6 and ended on Sept. 1. The English football league matches kicked off on Aug. 22, the last match in the 1963 to 1964 season having been played on April 27. There was a gap of almost four months.

Times have changed. Setting aside long football World Cup tournaments, regional, international, and club competitions, and extended international pre-season events, domestic fixture schedules have been elongated.

The opening 2023 to 2024 English Premier League fixture was on Aug. 11. The last one is scheduled for May 19. In the previous season, the last fixtures were played on May 28. The gap has narrowed to less than three months.

This is anathema to diehard cricket lovers. Some of them have been known to take it to extremes.

One Saturday in early September 1961, when the cricket and football seasons marginally overlapped, a team of cricketers bought an evening paper, another relic of the past.

Much to their chagrin, they had difficulty locating the cricket scores among the football coverage. Spurred on by this perceived sleight that soccer was encroaching into their season, they resolved to fight back.

The outcome was a match played on Dec. 26. Interestingly, they chose the 20-over format, long before it was introduced professionally in 2002. Soup and baked potatoes comprised