The Ashes: England defeat made me cry, says Australia’s Grimsby fan James Pattinson

We and our partners use technology, like cookies, and collect browsing data to personalise the content and advertising shown for you and to supply you with the very best internet experience.
Please let us know whether you agree.
From Stephan Shemilt
BBC Sport
Not many interviews are conducted using an 11-month-old baby girl gift.
But, given that James Pattinson had begun to discuss his family history, it was likely that his daughter Lilah was rolling around on the ground of a Leeds hotel, being entertained by Australia’s media manager.
Born in Melbourne from just outside of Barnsley to a father from also a mother and Grimsby, Pattinson might have played for England. His brother Darren did this, for one Evaluation back.
When England toured down under in 2010-11, instead of bowl fast for Australia, james was also asked to wear the Three Lions. The 29-year-old still has fond memories of the family returning to reside at Cleethorpes if he was aged five, even though he dropped.
“They were quite good times,” he explained.
“My brother worked on the docks as a fishmonger. Mum would accumulate me and we would pick him up on the way through. I recall him in a white outfit and the glasses, stinking of fish, and each day I would be spewing from the window because I couldn’t take care of the smell.
“We lived in one of those scrawny houses. 1 afternoon I had been playing upstairs and I seemed from the window and saw dad’ute. I looked at me and dad was not there.
“I stated:’daddy, what is your car doing driving down the street?’ He was like’what? Are you kidding me’ Someone else had gone across the back to our garage and nicked it. At the moment, dad thought it would have been his boss during a insurance job. We still don’t know.”
This is the mid-1990s. Pattinson recalls playing Pogs and getting into scrapes for being the only child in Cleethorpes using an Australian accent.
His dad introduced into Grimsby Town him.
“The very first time we went to Blundell Park, we drove, and if we arrived back our car was broken in to,” he recalled. “Someone had smashed the rear window. I don’t know what they uttered, because we did not really have much. That was the last time we drove.
“My auntie functioned at the neighborhood pub in Cleethorpes and second door was a fish and chip shop. We used to go in the pub, buy chips and some fish , then go to see the football. It was rather cool.”
Pattinson’s time dwelling in England lasted just a few years before the family went back to Melbourne -“mommy got sick of this weather” – although the impression created by Grimsby, along with English soccer, was long permanent.
“When we were in Australia, dad drank out of a Grimsby Town mug he had forever. I would always be looking their own scores up, or he would tell me if they were not going and if they’d won.
“I can still remember yelling after England lost to Portugal in a penalty shootout. Dad was pretty distraught too.”
The hyperlinks to England and pattinson’s youth have continued to echo throughout his adult life and most of his extended family are in Cleethorpes.
He’s got tattoos of Big Ben and a hat. Earlier this season, throughout his period as the overseas player of Nottinghamshire, he discovered that Grimsby played Notts County at Meadow Lane. He went on his own and watched them lose 2-1.
However, Pattinson is, in his own words,”100% Australian”. That feeling did not extend to his dad, who had some convincing when his son played, to change his allegiance Ashes cricket.
“My very first Test series against England was 2013. He was umming and ahing and I said:’come on, you’ve got to support your kid’.
“Among the things which helped him change his own mind was when Darren played with his Test, a number of those great England players who daddy loved said some matters that he wasn’t pleased with.”
The scene of his brother’s just match, the coincidence of speaking about Darren at Leeds, was not lost on James.
The selection of darren 11 decades ago was the England pick in memory.
He was able to play Nottinghamshire due to his UK passport. Having a record, albeit Following six games for Notts, he was plucked from nowhere to play against South Africa.
“It was a shock,” said James, who was 18 at the time. “Darren up me and said’I might be playing for England in 2 days. We had no chance so that I watched it and sat up all night.
“Looking back today, because I have been about top-level cricket, I can observe that the flak he got was only people’s comments.
“At that timeI was young and my dad hadn’t ever experienced folks saying bad stuff about his own sons. He was a little beat up on it.
“I don’t think Darren enjoyed the Test that much, but it’s a terrific accomplishment that he playedwith. If England hadn’t dropped, then maybe opinions would be different.”
After Darren retired, he dabbled with James, who as a teen helped a local coach by puppies involved, in coaching greyhounds.
The Pattinson boys still own a couple of racers though James is pleased to admit that the brothers are bowling quickly than training winners, although the business has since cooled.
It may be that Pattinson misses out on playing in the fourth Ashes Test at Old Trafford. His match figures of 3-56 in the amazing third Test triumph of England were commendable, but his back that is is being managed as part of the tourists’ coverage to rotate his battery of fast bowlers.
From what we understand of Pattinson the cricketer – out the torso, knees pumping, snarling fast bowler – it is hard to match him into the hot dad.
He talks of how he owes a lot of his career to his dad, with whom his fondest memories are of flying around London on a yearlong bus, then contemplates how he could have been lining up to the home side, instead of wearing tight green, if his parents had not decided to go back down under.
Then, at the finish, the competition that is Pattinson shines through.
“Yeah, I might have a soft spot for England, however I will be doing everything I can to win the Ashes for Australia.”
Was Ben Stokes’ Test at Headingley the very exciting England win of time?
Get reacquainted with a Dragon which’awakens in people’
Analysis and opinion from the BBC’s cricket correspondent.

Read more here: http://afrtncorporation.com/?p=8778