* This article first appeared in The Cricket Paper, get it every Sunday or subscribe here

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I always try to catch the last day of the Championship season.

Call me a sentimental old fool but, at the close, I normally clap off the team, walk around the ground one last time and then, after a long, lingering look, head off home towards winter.

Perhaps it is linked with my childhood when the end of the campaign meant school was back in. It was the autumn term and, when I was growing up in the dark days of the 1980s, that meant walking through grey driving rain to catch a grey bus to a grey comprehensive school whose entire teaching ethos was based on sarcasm.

The end of the county cricket season felt like the last sunshine of the year, both real and metaphorical, so it was important to savour the moment. Especially as there was always a chance a hero or two would not be back.

Close season ‘transfers’ have increasingly left county fans with a bitter taste. Traditionally they were more about opportunity than money but, in the last 20 years, we have seen this ideal weaken considerably. Still, Britain's summer sport has always revelled in retirement, especially if the departing player has been a long-serving one-club man. In the last couple of years, we have seen Marcus Trescothick (26 years with Somerset) and Ian Bell (21 years with Warwickshire) receive emotional tributes from fans and neutrals alike. You can expect many at Chelmsford to shed a tear when Ryan ten doeschate (19 years with Essex) bids farewell next week.

There appears to have been more retirements than usual this season with bigger names choosing to call time. In their prime, Daryl Mitchell (Worcestershire), Rikki Clarke (Surrey). Mitch Clayden, Stuart Meaker (both Sussex), Tim Groenewald (Kent), Alex Wakely (Northamptonshire), Peter Trego, Harry Gurney (Nottinghamshire), Josh Poysden (Yorkshire) and ten doeschate could have been the backbone of a strong county side. Undoubtedly there will be many more over the winter, either through injury or failing to secure the contracts they require. The financial fall-out of the pandemic could well swell the numbers. This list only comprises those who managed to get in front of the issue.

Most will have been preparing for the day financially but it is always the emotional side that troubles me. Football has seen more than its fair share of post-career casualties who miss the high of the game so much they seek a substitute at the bar or in the bookies. It is not about money either. NFL players are multi-millionaires but the National Bureau of Economic Research revealed 16 per cent filed for bankruptcy within 12 years of retiring. Another study said 78 per cent fell into financial difficulty within two years of packing away their helmet. The reasons are complex but their identity is wrapped up in the game and, on retirement, one way of retaining self-worth is to continue to finance the lifestyle they had when they were playing. Fortunately, cricket does not have this issue. However, the career is much longer, for someone in their early 40s it is likely to comprise half of their working life so, though they have greater maturity when they retire, their identity is much more ingrained.

Of course, this is all cod psychology from me. I have never played sport professionally. However, I have been chewed up and spat out by an industry in which I had invested my self-worth and found that, after turning 50, the market no longer wanted what I had previously sold so successfully. Trust me, it is a brutal blow to your ego.

Sport is a peculiar profession and cricket is a peculiar sport. It is both individual and team-orientated at the same time. You spend so damn long out on the field, and if you are a pro travelling and in hotels, that it is no surprise the game has a long history with mental illness and even suicide.

However, one thing I have learnt from a life surrounded by professional athletes is that they do not think like us. For every veteran hamstrung by a damaging cocktail of low self-esteem and a huge ego, there are 10 who are well-adjusted, determined and looking forward. The PCA have done fine work in this regard.

But behind the press releases thanking everyone and being “excited about the next stage of my journey”, those retiring this week and this winter will lose a little something. Namely, the ability to be the hero. All their runs have now been scored, all their wickets have been taken so their sporting story will stay the same.
On retirement some may achieve recognition they never had before, others will just be content to fade away while some may be ravage by bitterness and regret.

Hopefully, this year’s retirees will not shake off a celebratory hangover only to solemnly stare at themselves in the mirror and ask “what now?”. But many of us have felt this almighty bump even though we had much less further to fall.

So why don’t you pop down to the county ground this week to see that old favourite’s last knock or last over, especially if they have served your team well.

Loyalty, respect for the game and understated effort are becoming rarer and rarer in modern sport. So let’s celebrate the passing of these endangered creatures while we can.

* This article first appeared in The Cricket Paper, get it every Sunday or subscribe here

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