by Tanya Aldred
Thursday, August 30, 2001 Warning: this article contains strong language.

And so the Ashes were lost. But still the people came. From Edgbaston to Lord's, even to the last day at The Oval when England were fighting only to avoid a 4-1 defeat.

Cricket, especially against Australia, is still adored. The result – pots of lovely money for the ECB (give or take the odd lost day), lots of lovely cricket for the spectators and, despite seven consecutive defeats, an Ashes urn which, seemingly forever, remains on English soil. High fives all round.

But for some people the cricket wasn't so lovely. Those who sat in the Hollies stand at Edgbaston and had to listen to eight hours of "No surrender to the IRA". Those at Trent Bridge who had "Shane Warne is a paedophile" in one ear and "get your tits out for the lads" in the other. Those at The Oval who had to listen to tirades of abuse at the Australians for being fucking wankers.

Two weeks running, Michael Henderson has written in The Daily Telegraph about how this behaviour is a reflection of society. That debate could go on forever. But what the ECB have to decide is how firm a grip they want to keep on cricket's soul in England.

Maybe these people are the new face of cricket. They certainly swell the coffers. But if the ECB want, as they profess, to attract a new audience to cricket – one which includes women and children – they can't have it both ways.

What woman, what human, wants to go to a match and be dumped with a group of abusive drunkards? If you do go and that is your experience, you aren't going to come back in a hurry. And if you don't go to see a sport, the likelihood of falling head over heels in love with it is slim.

We will never go back to olde-worlde cricket, where the ultimate expression of delight was a pat on the back. It wasn't all good back then anyway – black and Asian cricketers will tell you that. And silence isn't always golden – the mass choir and brass band at Port Elizabeth, the carnival in Trinidad, the roar of the crowd when Butcher got going at Headingley beats the hush in the close tonight, or at any other time of day.

But abuse is different.

There are no easy solutions. Ban alcohol completely? Bang goes the pleasure of nodding drowsily in a deckchair with a pint of shandy. And why should everyone miss out because of a vocal minority.

The answer might be for the authorities to become as strict on abusive chanting as they have this year become on pitch invasions. There were enough stewards crawling around at the Trent Bridge Test to quell a small riot. If you do have racists, eject them. If you do have sexists, get rid of them. If they come in and do it again, ban them from the ground. It sounds draconian, but soul is worth fighting for.

Tanya Aldred is assistant editor of Wisden.com. The Women's Page appears every Thursday.

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