Last post: dry eyes and an empty page, but after 31 years it is a fond farewell

Just one more intro, that’s all that’s needed … “It was 31 years ago that I joined the Observer …” No, no, that’s not so snappy; it’s ancient history and on a par with one I sent off early in my time as its cricket correspondent which began with two riveting words: “Last Wednesday” (thankfully there was an intervention by the desk).

How about: “It’s hard to write with tears in your eyes”? Just a couple of drawbacks here. It’s a tad over the top – this is for sport for heaven’s sake, not the review section – and it’s not true either. I’ve never really believed Don Bradman had tears in his eyes when he was bowled by Eric Hollies at the Oval in his last Test innings in 1948 and as I stare at a disappointingly empty screen here my eyes remain stubbornly dry. (How can I be so presumptuous to summon up a parallel with the last days of the Don? It must be time to move on.)

I am moving on. I did have a vague plan to cover one more Ashes series next winter but … stuff happens and it’s the right time to go. I have been in Australia for every Ashes series since 1982; the first time was as a member of the England tour party in a Lord Lucan role – at least until the one-day games came along; four years later I was a surprising overseas recruit for Western Australia looking on eagerly from Perth. Since then I’ve been there for the Observer, and latterly the Guardian, on eight occasions. The series I enjoyed the most were in 1986-87 and 2010-11. I’ll leave you to work out why.

Come what may, something always happens there and at the end of it there is usually a comprehensive review of English cricket or, less frequently, the minor deification of a great leader. Meanwhile the English press corps look on. When it all goes wrong they may seem like vultures hovering mercilessly but in fact this is the one series when our press lose their famed objectivity; they really want England to win, which goes some way to explaining why an Ashes series is different.

Quick Guide Memorable matches Show

West Indies v England, Jamaica 1990My first Test as a correspondent during which I am fiercely chastised by my new colleagues for leaping out of my seat and cheering the fall of another West Indies wicket.

India v South Africa. Calcutta 1992South Africa’s first game back. Observer sports editor Simon Kelner suddenly decides to send me there. “The game isn’t until Sunday so there will be no play to report,” I point out quickly. “Go anyway,” he says. Grim game, great occasion.

Australia v England, Adelaide 2010England win by an innings; the Aussie section of the press box becomes known as “The Library” and we sense the Ashes are within reach.

England v New Zealand, World Cup final 2019A rare event. I don’t even mind having to do a late rewrite.

Yeovil Town v Telford (possibly?), April 2003Sent to cover Yeovil’s imminent promotion to the Football League. Mention to sports editor Brian Oliver that I had watched them very occasionally as a boy. Check the copy on Sunday morning and there is the strap and my byline, “Lifelong Glovers’ fan, Vic Marks, returns to Huish Park”. So that’s how it works.

Just as memorable was my first tour as the Observer’s correspondent in early 1990. The start of something always sticks in the mind. At Sabina Park in Kingston, Jamaica, I pitched up in shorts, a T-shirt, a floppy hat with a pad of paper and a Biro in my hands and no real idea in my head how to write a match report. I had never written one before. Things have changed a lot since then. Now I would have a mobile phone and a swish laptop which allows immediate access to the desk. “And the match reports?” I hear you ask. Well, I was just getting the hang of them when it was time to leave.

In between that Test at Sabina Park, amazingly won by England, which had not been predicted in the Observer the previous week, and the last match I covered – the Bob Willis Trophy final at Lord’s – there have been other victories, epic ones in Mumbai, Karachi and Headingley, a dodgy one at Centurion, which I nearly witnessed, and some dire defeats requiring grim post-mortems. There have been scandals, some real (match-fixing, spot-fixing) some imagined (Gower’s Tiger Moth flight in 1991, Bairstow’s headbutt greeting in 2017).

Throughout that time almost without exception those back in the office have been incredibly helpful, civilised and sympathetic. Sometimes they sent me to cover rugby despite a limited knowledge of the game. (“How do I assess marks out of 10 for the prop forwards?” I asked Eddie [Butler]. “No idea,” replied the man who packed down behind them for Wales and the Lions.) Occasionally there was football and once – only once – I covered Tom Daley diving at Plymouth. This year for the first time I was hoping for golf at Sandwich, but had to settle for Okehampton.

‘The Ashes is the one series when our press lose their famed objectivity; they really want England to win.’ Photograph: Scott Barbour/Getty Images

And now suddenly it is over. No more railing about the Hundred (well, almost). I’ll be spared having to attend it which is just as well since I have to travel to another country to watch my local team. Like Brexit, the Hundred has been smouldering and mouldering for about four years; like Brexit most people recognise it’s a crap idea, but no one has the balls to stop it.

I still think it’s a cynical gimmick that distorts the domestic schedule to such an extent that the next generation of bright cricketers will have little ambition or incentive to concentrate on the red-ball game.

But let’s finish on a more optimistic note: 2020 has been calamitous for so many walks of life and yet it is my impression that the absence of cricket for much of last summer has demonstrated how much we miss it, how much we value it. There may be a renewed hunger for the game out there when it returns. The Oval has already sold out for five of its six days of international cricket in 2021. The same applies at Edgbaston for the Blast finals. Perhaps we don’t need the gimmicks after all. Just give us back the game.

Now back to the intro, just one more intro … and I’m running out of time and space here … I’m off.