“Hullo, can I elp you pal”, were the words that broke my gaze while surveying the store directory just inside the front door. I looked across from where the booming Glaswegian accent had come from to see a brightly uniformed gentleman called Robbie smiling in my direction.

I said, “Yes, I was wondering if you stock any cricket equipment ?”. To which Robbie replied, “Yes pal, 3^rd floor”. With an undoubted sense of shock, as we were in a country that has never really taken to cricket, I rushed to the lift and pressed number 3.

Ping, and the doors rolled back to reveal an Aladdin’s cave of cricketing equipment. How many floors had I risen ? Was this Cricket heaven ? I scurried over to the bats like an excited schoolboy in a toy shop and started cover driving imaginary balls with the entire stock. Then I moved on to examine the pads and gloves, I have never seen so many different makes and shapes all in one place. They even had real chamois batting inners, that made my ones from Sports Soccer feel like Marigold washing up gloves.

Next stop in the cricketing utopia was clothing and shoes. Of course hanging in pride of place was the Scottish World Cup shirt, but further along the rail there were numerous stylish shirts and jumpers.

But the best section had unintentionally been saved until last. This was the gadgets and gizmos section. Every shelf on a packed store display unit was covered in “Cricketing candy”. Four different types of match ball, five different types of indoor net balls, grips, grip applicators, boxes, pants, scorebooks, and even a transportable scoreboard !

For someone like myself who has been rejuvenated into the world of cricket, this shop was a dream come true. It goes without saying that if this type of shop were to be opened in the new look Enfield Town, many a civic centre lunch break would run into the late afternoon !