IT'S a confession hitherto made. For near-historic reasons – first form, Bishop Auckland Grammar School, AD 1959 – the column’s county cricket allegiance is with Somerset.

Watching them has become an annual exercise in self-flagellation, a three-line whip teased out to a thousand words.

In 125 years they’ve never once flown the County Championship pennant. Before pitching up at Scarborough last week, they’d not won a first class game all season, prompting the unfortunate young captain to drop himself after a pair in the previous match.

His name’s Abell, not currently an exemplar of name and nature.

Strictly it’s not the Scarborough Festival, that’s against Essex from August 6-9, but there are many who regard any day’s cricket at the North Marine Road ground as blessed, a seaside distillation of cricket watching at its most pure.

It’s last Wednesday, day three of four, Somerset 268 on first innings and Yorkshire 159-7 overnight. To have chance of avoiding relegation, a Somerset victory seems obligatory.

Admission’s £16, 11,500-capacity ground about a quarter full, spectators mostly seated on elderly two-plank benches which rise amphitheatrically.

One or two have brought cushions: they must be Lancastrians.

BEFORE 9 30am – and why early risers should be so penalised is anyone’s guess – the return rail fare from Darlington to Scarborough is £45.

“Don’t forget the senior rail card,” I tell the booking office lady.

“That’s with the rail card,” she says – or to put it differently, an ordinary standard class return to Scarborough would be about £60.

It’s coincidental because, just a couple of days earlier, reader Dennis Wearmouth in Shildon had sent in the post a ticket that he himself had found on the train to Scarborough.

It’s an “any time” return from London to York and it cost £244. “Travel agents offer a seven-day holiday in Europe for that price,” says Dennis, not unreasonably. “The difference between booking on-line and at the station is staggering.”

Eventually, the ever-helpful lady at Darlington issues a return to York (£26, with the railcard) and another from York to Scarborough, £12.

The chap in the next seat on the train is reading the Morning Star, likely proof that the ultra-left newspaper’s still around. If the Commies can do anything about our iniquitous train fare structure, they might get another vote.

SCARBOROUGH'S what properly is called an out-ground. Once Yorkshire, like many other counties, had any amount of annual moons in appreciative orbit around headquarters.

Now only Scarborough survives, a sort of not-out out-ground.

Harrogate was among those which lost both fix and fixture, and after 91 first class matches. The county club, said Harrogate council chief executive Mick Walsh 17 years ago, should be renamed the Leeds and Scarborough Cricket Club.

They’d staged 391 first class matches at Bramall Lane in Sheffield, continued for another 20 years at the steel city’s Abbeydale Park ground, had 49 games at Savile Town, Dewsbury and variously pitched up at Halifax and Huddersfield, Hunslet, Horsforth and Hull.

Between 1956-96, Yorkshire were also greatly familiar, and eagerly anticipated, at Acklam Park in Middlesbrough, losing only eight of 45 games there but totalling just 23, the county’s lowest ever score, against Hampshire in 1965. David “Butch” White took 6-10.

The county side also played a first class match at the Linthorpe Road ground and two at Swatters Carr, nearby. Swatters Carr is now the name of one of Messrs Wetherspoons boozers.

The North Marine Road ground – 37 Trafalgar Square, Scarborough – was opened in 1863, coincidentally the year that the county club was formed, and has also hosted football, athletics, hockey and cycling. Though the capacity is now 11,500, twice as many were recorded for a day against Derbyshire in 1947.

There were also two one-day internationals, in 1976 and 1978, the great I V A Richards smiting 119 off 131 balls in the first.

Last Wednesday’s attendance is officially put at 3,002. If they’re looking for a day in the sun, then both meteorologically and metaphorically most are going to be disappointed.

IT'S cloudy, chilly, not quite raining but by no means Scarborough fair. “I’ve just got me coat dry from yesterday,” someone says. The crowd’s hunched, a bit like the early cricket. Seagulls circle ceaselessly, and far too close for comfort.

Properly they’re herring gulls, are they not? What fearful mutation has given a fish eater so voracious an appetite for cheese and pickle sandwiches?

Yorkshire lose Plunkett early, are all out for 214 on the stroke of noon. It’s 12 20pm before the first plastic glass of Wold Top ale is spotted on the terraces, though the sun’s not yet over the yardarm (or anywhere else, come to that.)

Somerset’s second innings is opened by the magnificent Marcus Trescothick, 41, who this season celebrated his 50th century for the club but has otherwise failed to near his own time-honoured standards.

Perhaps it’s Marcus’s last season. It would be like the ravens flying the Tower (or Henry Blofield quitting Test Match Special.)

At lunch we’re 36-0. As if the skies weren’t sufficiently overcast, a bloke in the King and Cask (“Elvis every Tuesday”) complains that his beer’s cloudy, too.

Marcus nudges, winks, plays, misses, is dropped in the slips, essays a couple of lovely, nostalgic off drives and goes for 27. With Tresco as with Tesco, every little helps. Eddie Byrom, his opening partner, makes 40.

To be honest, it’s become a bit tedious, so much so that a two-planks couple behind are in earnest discussion about what colour to paint the bathroom.

Tim Rouse is joined by James Hildreth, the pace quickens. At tea it’s 140-2, the lead nearly 200, the crowd subdued. There’s not a bit of baht ‘at, no music, no fancy dress – unless, of course, the chap in winter coat, muffler and woolly hat is doing it for a bet.

Anxious Tykes are beginning to check the following day’s weather forecast on their phones, no longer hoping for sunshine but praying for rain. If there’s a west country corner, it’s soberly subdued, too.

When midsummer bad lights halts proceedings at 6pm, it’s 243-3 and Somerset still have a chance on the last day.

Though not strictly the festival, the Easter hymn “Hail thee festival day” soars irresistibly, incorrigibly to mind. It’s not the self-flagellation that kills you, it’s the hope.

THE next day Somerset declare when Hildreth reaches his century, set a target of 337 and after taking four early wickets are only going to lose if the rain gods are peculiarly vindictive. We win by 179 runs, now 34 points from safety with six games remaining. Much remains to be done: even in Scarborough, one swallow isn’t going to make a summer.