Barmy Army on the charge

As you are aware, we are encouraging emails to be sent to the commentators during this Test series so we can address them in downtime moments. Admittedly, so far in this series there have not been too many of them.

After lunch on day 5 of the Durban Test, I spent about 30 minutes going through the various comments. As you can imagine it was a hot bed of discussion, particularly after umpire Hair had yet again got on the wrong side of the South African supporters for shooting Jacques Rudolph!

I can confess a high percentage of correspondence on that subject would never have been aired word for word on national television! Emotions were running high.

Hair was not the only one in the firing line. Astoundingly a few emails were suggesting the Barmy Army were a disgrace and nothing more than cricket's version of football hooligans. I was taken aback by these remarks as I reckon the Barmy Army are great.

I must admit I had my reservations when they first burst on the scene back in 1994-95 in Australia, but after observing them for years I have no doubt they add plenty to a days play. For starters just imagine how barren the stadiums would be if they had not spent hard earned cash to come and follow their team. I know they can be boisterous, their mothers might have always dressed them funny, their songs are repetitious and you would not want to be behind them in the beer queue. This colourful bunch, in more ways than one.... just check out the various degrees of sunburn, create a buzz second to none.

They now really do have something to crow about as their side has developed into a strong unit but initially things were very different. The Australian media coined the term 'Barmy Army' during their first tour abroad as they thought they were simply barmy to travel the world and spend their precious money watching their team lose consistently. For the record, the results of that 94-95 tour were presumably down heartening as they lost the series to Australia 3-1, lost to an Australia A side, were beaten by Zimbabwe and to cap it all off, the Australian Academy team also got one over them!

During a previous tour of South Africa, I singled out their intrepid leader to glean more information. Founding member Paul Burnham is serious about this concept. Paul, who now runs the Barmy Army travel company, is also proud of what they stand for. The bottom line is that it is all about a passionate group who reckon they can make a difference and subsequently spur their charges on to greater things with pro-team support. He admits their biggest challenge is in Australia where home crowds can be a bit intimidating. South African crowds offer no challenge.

The purchase of some Barmy Army merchandise and the ability to congregate in one area of the ground is all that appears to be required to join the ever swelling numbers, and a loud often not in tune singing voice. Did I mention the ability to consume large quantities of beer? Again for the record, some 20,000 litres of beer was consumed during day 1 of the Durban Test, which was twice as much as was drunk during the entire Boxing Day Test the previous year against the West Indies! Not bad going.

On to Cape Town. Word has it that 10,000 barmy individuals will join as one army to yet again to present an erratic cacophony of noise.

There is one way to silence them....... let's hope it is South Africa who are on song!