Leave Lancashire where they are

There should be no reason for Lancashire to leave Old Trafford unless the case for a move is unanswerable © Getty Images

These are peculiar days at Old Trafford. The famous old ground has looked increasingly ramshackle in recent years and there is now a chance that Lancashire, having commissioned a feasibility study, may decide to move to a site on the other side of Manchester, next to the City of Manchester Stadium, which was used for the Commonwealth Games of 2002 and where Manchester City now play football (at least that is what they call it).

Will they go? There is no great desire within the committee room, so far as one can tell. A move remains only a possibility, although many of the members canvassed have indicated that they may be happy to go along with the change if the sums add up and it was genuinely felt that the club - and therefore cricket - would be better off as a result.

In any argument that involves tradition and `progress' sentiment will always play a part. In the past decade several football clubs have moved out of familiar homes to spanking new stadia without shedding many tears, though some of those grounds (Roker Park, the Baseball Ground, Burnden Park) belonged to the black-and-white age of rattles and pea-soupers. Cricket is a different game, with a different profile and a different following. There should be no reason for Lancashire to leave Old Trafford unless the case for a move is unanswerable.

It cannot be denied that Lancashire have lagged a long way behind Warwickshire, who stage an excellent Test match, and Nottinghamshire, who have transformed Trent Bridge into a marvellous modern international venue that nevertheless maintains its old-fashioned charm. Trent Bridge, with its `Rapunzel's Tower' at the Radcliffe Road End and enhanced seating on all sides of the ground, should be the point of reference for all modernisers because it proves that you can adapt to a changing world while preserving the essence of a place. Although it has changed considerably in the last decade, there is a sense that Trent Bridge has not changed at all.

Old Trafford, by contrast, is an unlovely ground which needs to change. Its development has been piecemeal, with no guiding principle, so that the ladies' pavilion, built in the 1970s, has become an eyesore, although it looks no more out of place than the lonely double-decker stand opposite the pavilion. Deprived, again, of a Test match, for which Lancashire have always had problems in shifting tickets, they are entitled to feel unloved. Certainly it is clear that the ECB holds Old Trafford in lower regard than the other provincial grounds.

For those who grew up watching cricket at Old Trafford it will always be a special place, not for the architecture but for the associations. A personal list of favourite memories would include both Gillette Cup semi-finals against Gloucestershire (the 1975 tie was as good, if not as dramatic, as the one four years before), Ian Botham's magnificent century against Australia in 1981, Greg Chappell's no less magnificent hundred in 1977 and a dozen or more innings by Clive Lloyd.

But the game left its deepest impression in 1968 when I attended a Test match for the first time and saw the Australians, yes, in their baggy green caps, beat England in the first match of the series. Doug Walters, unusually, made runs and Pat Pocock took wickets. I can still recall the thrill of watching the players knock up in the nets before the start of the fourth day and finding out how hard cricketers hit the ball. From that moment I was in thrall to this extraordinary game and not a Test match passes at Old Trafford without the bright sunlight of those early memories burning through the mists of time.

Of course, if Lancashire did move across town, boys as young as I was then will still watch Test cricket. There will always be players to admire, and their memories will become as precious as mine. But I hope they do not have to visit Eastlands. I hope that Lancashire will put the feasibility study to one side and then talk at length to Trafford Council to see how they can make Old Trafford a better ground for all spectators. It will cost money but it cost Nottinghamshire a few bob and they found the wherewithal. Grounds hold memories. They remind us of the great players and the not so great, the dramatic and the comic moments.

Each personal mythology is different. I like to think that Lancashire players will continue to bowl where Statham bowled and bat where Washbrook batted, and hurl the ball in from the pickets, as little Harry Pilling used to do. Ugly as it is, Old Trafford is still worth saving.