"I still get people now saying I got into cricket because of '05, so that's what we should all be most proud of: that we inspired people to like the game" - Michael Vaughan
Rob Key scoring a double hundred the previous summer and England's run in the 2004 Champions Trophy (I naively thought England would romp to victory having reduced the West Indies to 147-8 in the final) may have laid the foundations, but it was the 2005 Ashes which ignited the fire.
2005 was a year of great change and one which was, all being considered, fairly awful for me. It's one, in my darkest moments, I often find myself looking back at and thinking, 'Ah, so that's where that started'.
At the turn of the year, I was heading into my final few months of middle school (a quirk of growing up in West Suffolk meant the three-tier system rather than the two-tier). Year 8 is an awkward time for anyone: hormones are well and truly embedded into your daily life and because of this, emotions are all over the place. Teenage angst is beginning to form and, if you're a young woman, your body decides that once a month it's going to give you a painful punch in the abdomen. Combine all this with an awkwardly growing body and a change of schools and you've got where my mental state was for much of the year.
The last year of middle school was meant to be a happy one. With Year 8 came increased responsibility, harder work, being seen as role models for those pesky Year 5s. For many of my peers from those days, it was probably a happy time and when thinking about the 'good old days', it's all "remember when..." with a smile. For me, though, it was a torture.
Looking back, I realise now that I never really fitted in. As I've got older, I've realised that I function best with close friends and I didn't particularly have that at middle school. I flitted between large groups like the world's most socially inept butterfly, desperate to be liked. Desperate to be welcomed. Desperate to be accepted. Desperate to belong.
But I was too tall, too awkward, too fat, too different, too... desperate. And I remained on the outside, constantly looking in. One of my defining memories of my time in Year 8 was being hit on the back of my head with a shoe, deliberately thrown by my middle school bully, and nobody showing the least bit of concern. I tried to discuss, tried to get this large group of people to show me the least bit of sympathy, but it only made things worse. I shut up about it, occasionally rubbing the back of my head in the hope that someone would ask me how I was. Nobody did and I began to withdraw into myself, building up walls around me.
Despite this, I couldn't bring myself to hate school. I loved learning, throwing myself into projects and reading with enthusiasm. So instead, I turned the hatred onto myself. Humiliation after humiliation followed (a swimming gala where I, as House Captain and only person seemingly willing, had to do nearly every single event wearing a horrific black swimming costume which only drew attention to my tall chubbiness, is a very vivid one) and the misery piled on. Body confidence deteriorated, my mental health took a nose dive and I spent more and more time in my room, isolating myself from the world and writing terrible things about myself in a fine array of notebooks.
Apart from Saturdays. Saturday was football day. Sport was my escape from this torrid misery of teenage angst and self-loathing. And Ipswich were doing well, really well. We'd finished third and all that was between us and promotion was three matches. All we needed to do was beat West Ham across two legs and we'd be on our way to Cardiff for the play-off final.
Or so we hoped. But life in 2005 wasn't like that for me and naturally, Ipswich lost. Rather like my mental health since that year, they've continued to be in decline ever since.
It was in this environment, then, that the 2005 Ashes kicked off. And it was that series which offered me hope, promise and, most importantly, joy. Memories of that summer include: sitting in my pyjamas, unable to move away from the television, growing increasingly more and more nervous watching the conclusion of the Edgbaston Test before erupting into uncontainable joy when Billy Bowden raised his crooked finger. Simon Jones bowling Michael Clarke ("THAT. IS. VERY. GOOD."). Standing in a packed, tiny village cricket pavilion with Lashings stars sprinkled about, pressed up against a bar watching Hoggard and Giles knock the runs off at Trent Bridge on the world's smallest television set. Starting high school (the torment continued) and racking up an astronomic phone bill using mobile internet to check the score on that final day at The Oval. The format of the scorecard causing me to think that KP was out and being incredibly surprised as I walked through the front door to find that he was still going. Crying as the bails were taken off. Crying as the Ashes trophy was lifted. Crying as the Channel 4 credits rolled because I realised that unless my parents forked out for Sky, I wouldn't be able to watch televised cricket ever again.
Cricket enveloped me in its welcoming arms and in return, I became obsessed with this game of laws, of ridiculous equipment, random stoppages, obscure facts and figures. This game of intrigue, of luck, of lulls and excitement. Where I had been an outsider in 2004, beginning to learn about this game, the 2005 Ashes swept me up and embraced me, creating a bond of love that is unlikely to break.
I still have the psychological scars of that year (as you may be able to tell) and it's left me with mental wounds which may never heal, no matter how much I finally open up about it. But cricket, in the form of the 2005 Ashes and what it has given me since, has given me something to help soothe them.
Cricket is a community. It is a community filled with glorious oddballs, eccentrics and statisticians. A community filled with enthusiasts. A community of clubs, of families, of friendships. Cricket, where school could not, gave me with an overwhelming sense of belonging. And for that, I will always be grateful.
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