Sheffield Cricket Lovers' Society Year Book 2017

35 Sheffield Cricket Lovers’ Society www.sheffieldcricketlovers.org.uk listeners over the four days.  Considering how many are in a ground it’s a vast new audience. Truck drivers in the USA, ex-pats in southern Spain, even families of players who are holidaying in the Far East - all get in touch to give the commentary team their views.  A few enterprising counties have even linked the BBC commentary to their live fixed camera website feed to give people the full audio video experience.  The real heroes are the commentators, spending six months a year travelling around the country covering their county.  Working with their BBC opposite number all day to do one single commentary they produce, commentate, tweet, write reports for the BBC website, do live updates for the radio stations.  They incorporate stats, views, humour, listener contributions via social media and can usually be joined for impromptu chats by visiting guests.  All things you would expect to get if you went to a county game – listening is the next best thing to being there.  Some are new to the game, many of them have done it for years, but the doyen of them all is Dave Callaghan.  For many years he’s been the ‘Voice of Yorkshire Cricket’ ; he was recently voted ‘the eighth most influential person in Yorkshire cricket’, and did his 400th Tykes’ commentary in early September 2016.  It was fitting this was marked by a YCCC presentation to ‘Cally’ in the commentary box by outgoing Yorkshire coach Jason Gillespie.  Among the other stalwarts is Dave Fletcher, a familiar voice on BBC Radio Leeds sport, and recently voted the ECB’s  2016 County Cricket Commentator of the Year  for his work on Derbyshire matches.   So, come April 2017 you will find a happy band of commentators consulting the fixture list, praying for good summer weather, packing maps, charging laptops, remembering to buy new Wisden and Playfair annuals and servicing the car.  All this to spend the summer doing what they regard as a real privilege, commentating on their beloved county cricket sides.  It’s something the BBC loves doing. We hope you enjoy listening to it.  Details of the BBC’s county cricket coverage can be found at www.bbc.co.uk/counties