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GROUND OF DREAMS5-4-04
By Jim Young Staff Writer CLIMAX -- You're driving down Monnett Road in southeastern Guilford County around noon. Suddenly you're wondering whether you should have your eyesight checked, or perhaps your blood-alcohol level.
You have come across a game of cricket, and chances are, you're thinking you've stumbled into another world. That's exactly what Mark Hobson has tried to create. On Sunday, he officially opened the Hobson Cricket Ground, culminating work that began nearly three years ago. That's when Hobson, 44, decided he wanted a permanent place where he and his teammates from the High Point Cricket Club could play their favorite sport. In the process, Hobson learned more about land development and county ordinances than he'd ever thought possible. In the end, the native Englishman managed to recreate a piece of the British Commonwealth in a rural stretch of the Triad. "It's the culmination of a dream," Hobson said. A dream that has been with Hobson since childhood, when he was growing up in 700-square-foot apartment on the west side of London. When he wanted to escape those cramped confines, Hobson went to the nearby Ealing Cricket Club. It wasn't just the game that attracted him, but the broad fields of green and the sparkling white pavilion. "It was picturesque," he said. "It was a sanctuary." A sanctuary is what Hobson felt he and his teammates needed. For several years, they bounced around the area, renting field space from parks and recreation departments to play their matches in the Mid Atlantic Cricket Conference. They were forced to play a flawed version of the sport. The critical component of a cricket field is the pitch -- the 22-yard strip of land where the bowler hurls the ball, usually on one bounce, toward the batter. Making sure that bounce is true means everything in cricket. A concrete pad, covered by outdoor matting, ensures that bounce. But installing that in the middle of a couple of public soccer fields wasn't going to happen.
"I thought at the time, 'Boy, we'll just have it mowed down, put nice grass in, and we'll be playing in three months,' " Hobson said. "Wrong." Way, way wrong. After Hobson called the Guilford County Planning Department, he began to realize just what he'd gotten himself into. First, he needed to get a site plan approved. Then, because he wouldn't just be living on the land, he needed to apply for a special-use permit. That meant putting in rest rooms and a parking area. Then, there was the waiver he needed so his parking lot could be gravel, rather than paved. All of which would have annoying, but manageable, if Mother Nature had cooperated. But the Bermuda grass Hobson planted on the cricket field perished during a drought. When rain finally came, they halted construction on the house Hobson was building adjacent to the ground. Even up until Sunday morning, Hobson was tempting the weather fates. "By all rights, this field is way too wet to play," Hobson said. "But we've got enough people here that we're going to give it a try."
"To be in our own place, where we can practice, where we can have games, it's a great feeling," said Shami Arshad of High Point. "There's nothing like it. Nothing." Also looking on, with a mixture of emotions ranging from pride, to relief, was Hobson's wife, Kristie. She had spent the previous months aiding her husband with his obsession, even earning the nickname "The Cricket Lady" from the planning department staffers after frequent trips to their office. A native of Texas, Kristie Hobson didn't quite understand all the details of her husband's dream, only that cricket made him happy and that it beat other potential mid-life crisis alternatives. "My dad said, 'Kristie, it's safer than a Harley Davidson,' " she recalled. Plus, as far as the Hobsons are concerned, it will provide many more years of enjoyment. The white Cape Cod-style house -- modeled in part on the pavilion at Ealing that Hobson remembered so fondly -- will eventually become a retirement home for the Hobsons. When those days come, Kristie Hobson plans to watch from the porch while her husband indulges in his favorite pasttime. "He'll never be bored," she said. How could he be, when he's living his dream?
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Clever Score
supplies scoreboards all over the world for all kinds of
applications and sports. Some of our customers also have amazing
stories of their own. The following story relates to Mark Hobsons
dream to build a cricket ground in the most unusual of places. Clever Score
supplied the scoreboard for Mark's "Ground of
dreams".
You see a group of men, dressed in white,
standing in a vast expanse of green, behind a white picket fence. In
the background, you see a white house, with people sitting on the
porch, looking on as a man races forward and throws a ball with a
stiff-armed motion, bouncing it toward a man wearing thick leg pads
and holding a wide wooden bat, close to the ground.
Hobson, a senior vice president of marketing
at Sealy, felt he could rectify the situation. In July 2001, he
found a stretch of land, just over six acres, that he felt had the
right shape and the right topography for a cricket ground 160 yards
long and 150 yards wide.
The crowd included friends, family and
co-workers as well as the other members of the High Point Cricket
Club. Aside from Hobson, the team is made up mostly of Pakistani
immigrants, cricket fanatics thrilled at the chance to play the game
the right way, in the right venue.