Back In Leicester Again Part 3 — Leicestershire La La La

6 min readJun 19, 2024

I come out of the hotel and directly opposite the door is a blue plaque to photograph and add to the collection.

I take my life in my hands and get across the road on the south side of St Nicholas’ Circle where there are no pedestrian crossings. I do a short slow walk around the outside of what used to be the Shakespeare’s Head but is now a building site as it changes hands again and is refitted.

There are a couple of information boards, one linked to the blue plaque I’ve just seen

and another to the underpass I’ve just crossed over.

I turn back on myself into Applegate with Wyggeston’s Hospital Boys School on one side on me.

And the Georgian part of Wygston’s House on the other.

Then I’m into Jubilee Square and by the BBC offices and the back-to-back information boards to radio stations there.

Across the square is another back-to-back set, this time both of them are to Roman Leicester.

Before I go into Wygston’s House and get a drink and meet up with a couple of my oldest friends.

I had already been told that Karl was out with workmates drinking, and he arrives not long after me having done the massive trek from the Highcross pub. Chris turns up a few minutes later feeling a bit rough after being out the night before for a few belated birthday drinks.

After a drink and an initial catch up it’s time to head to the destination for the evening. Grace Road, or the Uptonsteel ground as it is now known. It’s the latest Leicestershire (la-la-la) 20/20 game. Chris is driving and is parked in the Highcross centre car park. After managing to find the car (there were two attempts to get out of the lift on the wrong floor), it took longer to escape from the car park than it should have done. But I think we got to see all of the car park at least once, and some parts of it a couple of times.

At the other end we parked at Aylestone Meadows, a nice quiet car park most people don’t know about, and only a few minutes’ walk from the ground.

We get drinks and settle down on the front row of seats on the west of the ground with the sun behind us and side on to the wicket. So far Leicestershire have been doing a shit load better at 20/20 than when I saw them twice last year, and today’s opponents, Durham, have been having a torrid time.

The Bhangra style drumming troop were in full flow pre-game, and of course they ended up in the stand behind us for large portions of the game as most of the noise, and the Leicestershire la-la-la chanting was coming from that area.

Leicestershire scored well, getting 176 as they did in the game before this one, but it could have been more. There was the bad habit of batsmen getting out to catches in the deep just as soon as they had played themselves in and started scoring freely.

The Durham innings saw them start slowly, but not lose wickets at the rate we did. They were behind the required run rate for most of their innings, but ended up winning with three balls to spare. It would have been a different matter if the Leicestershire bowlers could have stopped bowling fucking wides. There were ten wides, which gave Durham ten free runs and ten more balls to get additional runs. In addition there was a no ball with a free hit, and of course from the free hit there was a catch in the deep, but it doesn’t count as a wicket on a free hit, and that batsman went on to score 71 runs and anchor their innings.

Therefore I keep my ongoing 20/20 jinx of never having seen the home side win a game I’ve gone to. This being the third Leicestershire one at Grace Road, and there have been two Sussex ones at Hove as well. Fortunately for Leicestershire (la-la-la) I’m not due to be going to any other games this season.

After the game it was off to the Black Horse at Aylestone. After the previous car park exit escapade, Chris managed this exit fine, and there was only the one wrong turn on the way to the Black Horse, which was one better than I managed last year.

There was a little chalk board advert on the table in the pub saying that every first Wednesday of the month they had ‘Drag Bingo’ with Fanny Burns. I’ve heard you can get a cream for that, or use Vaseline. On a noticeboard saying that June is time for anonymous tales of drunkenness. Just white it down and pin it to the board.

There were plenty of tales the three of us could tell and a few were retold between us over the course of the afternoon and evening. It is surprising how quickly time goes by when chatting and reminiscing.

Chris dropped me back off near St Margaret’s bus station after a good evening and I was off on to my next wander.

All the other pieces relating to my 2024 Leicester trip are in this library.