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

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From Stephan Shemilt
BBC Sport
Not a lot of interviews have been conducted using an 11-month-old baby girl present.
But, given that James Pattinson had begun to discuss his family history, it was apt that his daughter Lilah was rolling around on the floor of a Leeds hotel, being entertained by Australia’s media supervisor.
Born into a father from Grimsby and a mother in Melbourne from out of Barnsley, Pattinson could have played for England. His brother Darren infamously did just that, for one Test back.
James was asked to use the 3 Lions, instead of bowl quickly for Australia, when England toured down beneath in 2010-11. The has fond memories, even though he dropped.
“They’re quite good times,” he said.
“My brother worked on the docks as a fishmonger. Me would collect from school and we would pick him up on the way. I remember him in a white outfit and also the boots, stinking of fish, since I could not take care of the smell and I would be spewing from the window.
“We lived at one of these scrawny houses. One afternoon I was playing upstairs and I seemed out of the window and watched dad’ute pushing down the road. I looked at me and daddy was not there.
“I stated:’dad, what’s your car doing down the street?’ He was just like’what? Are you kidding me?’ Someone had gone round the back and nicked it. At the moment, daddy thought it might have been his boss during a insurance job. We still do not know.”
This was the mid-1990s. Pattinson remembers playing with Pogs and becoming scrapes for being the only child in Cleethorpes with the Australian accent.
He was introduced to Grimsby Town by his dad.
“The very first time we went to Blundell Park, we droveand when we came back our car was broken into,” he recalled. “Someone else had smashed the rear window. I don’t know what they uttered, because we didn’t actually have much. This was the last time we drove.
“My auntie worked in the neighborhood pub in Cleethorpes and the door was a fish and chip shop. We used to go at the pub, buy chips and a few fish go to see the football. It was rather cool.”
Pattinson’s time residing in England lasted just a couple of years until the family moved back to Melbourne -“mommy got sick of this weather” – but that the impression made by Grimsby, along with English football, was lasting.
“When we were in Australia, daddy drank out of a Grimsby Town mug that he had eternally. I’d constantly be looking their scores up, or he’d tell me if they’d won and when they weren’t going.
“I can still remember crying after England lost to Portugal in a penalty shootout. Dad was pretty distraught too.”
Pattinson’s childhood and the hyperlinks into England have continued to echo throughout his adult life and most of his extended family are still in Cleethorpes.
He’s got tattoos of a hat and Big Ben. During his period as Nottinghamshire’s international player, he found out that Grimsby played Notts County at Meadow Lane. He went along on his own and saw them lose 2-1.
But, Pattinson isalso, in his words,”100% Australian”. That atmosphere did not extend to his father, who needed some convincing when his son first 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 that helped him change his own mind was when Darren played his Test, some of those great England players who dad loved said some things he was not happy with.”
The scene of his brother’s only global match, the coincidence of speaking about Darren at Leeds, was not lost on James.
Darren’s choice was the England pick in recent memory.
Having learned his cricket in Australia, he managed to play Nottinghamshire because of the UK passport. Having a record, albeit after six matches for Notts, he had been plucked from nowhere to play South Africa.
“It was a jolt,” said James, who was 18 at the moment. “Darren up me and said’I’m playing for England in 2 days. We had no opportunity so I sat up all night and watched it.
“Looking back now, because I have been around top notch cricket, I could understand that the flak that he got was simply people’s opinions.
“At that moment I was young and my father had never experienced individuals saying bad stuff about his sons. He was a bit beat up about it.
“I don’t believe Darren enjoyed the Test that far, but it is a fantastic accomplishment he playedwith. If England had not lost, then maybe opinions would be different.”
Following Darren retired, he indulged together with James, who as a teen helped out a local trainer, in training greyhounds.
The Pattinson boys still have a couple of racers if James is pleased to admit that the brothers are bowling fast than training champions, although the business has 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 astonishing third Test triumph of England were respectable, but his rear that is is being managed as part of the tourists’ policy to rotate their battery of fast bowlers.
From what we understand of Pattinson the cricketer – the chest out, knees pumping, snarling fast bowler – it’s challenging to match him to the hot, chatty dad pushing a pram around a hotel.
He speaks of how he owes much of his profession to his father, with whom his fondest memories are of touring around London to a double-decker bus, and then contemplates the way he might have been lining up for the side, as opposed to wearing loose green, if his parents hadn’t decided to return down under.
Then the competitor that is Pattinson shines through.
“Yeah, I’ve a soft place for England, however, I’ll do everything I can to win the Ashes for Australia.”
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Analysis and view by the cricket correspondent of the BBC.

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