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Access All Areas: Behind the Scenes at Lancashire County Cricket Club by Phil Garlington £24.99
Lancashire CCC; 159pp
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It doesn't always rain at Old Trafford
© Getty Images
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With a month remaining in the 2006 English season a pictorial record of Lancashire's campaign was looking like a brilliant piece of forethought. The team were in the final of the C&G Trophy and part of a neck-and-neck race with Sussex for the Championship title. In the end they finished empty handed, edged out by the south coast side on both occasions, but Access All Areas: Behind the scenes at Lancashire County Cricket Club still works as an innovative way of portraying a domestic season.
The inspiration behind the book is from an earlier publication by the photographer, Phil Garlington, who was given access around Bolton Football Club and produced a well-received chronicle of a season. Cricket and football are two different beasts when it comes to putting a story into images; the rhythm of a county season is slightly more gentile than the high-stake, often controversial and multi-million pound world of Premiership football. However, there is still plenty of material on offer and Garlington was given virtually a complete roving brief, while Lancashire are not a club short on star names.
The book follows a similar path to the season; starting with the spring runs up Rivington Pike and hours in the gym through the net sessions and then to the action. The photos are largely in black and white apart from a colourful section for the Twenty20, which is quite fitting for the most popular period of the county season.
The content certainly does stick to the premise of the book as a behind-the-scenes account; there are very few action shots, but such images are available elsewhere and people know what happens on the pitch. A county dressing room, while not being quite the mystical surroundings of an international team or football club, is certainly an inner-sanctum the general public rarely get to see.
At 159 pages there are too many similar photos such as training and players sitting around, while the captioning is a little on the skimpy side for those not fully up to speed on Lancashire cricket. But a picture is meant to tell a thousand words and county cricket is certainly capable of throwing up the unusual.
The images of Mike Watkinson and the team sat in a nursery at Blackpool (which was used as the changing rooms) shows the less-than-glamorous world - but certainly more human - players sometimes operate in. However, if David Lloyd had still been Lancashire coach the sentences taped to the wall such as "Friends don't shout or try to boss" and "My friends mean a lot to me" could easily have been his latest motivational tools.
Andrew Flintoff makes regular appearances through the book (more regular than he did for the team) and the famous ankle is given a double-page spread and later he is seen running out to bat - his season ended a few days later. Much like Flintoff, Lancashire promised more than they delivered during 2006 and the final shots show a distraught Mark Chilton slumped on the Lord's balcony as their side slip to defeat in the C&G final.
But there is no need for such a glum feeling about the final product of Garlington's season around Old Trafford. The main interest will come from the North West, and at nearly £25 it isn't a cheap buy, but for a Lancashire fan - or county cricket follower - who wants a different perspective on a club it would a worthwhile addition to the library.
Andrew McGlashan is editorial assistant of Cricinfo
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