Leicestershire’s master of pitches is happy to leave the long days behind after four decades at Grace Road

“I’ve just moved house to a nice little village,” Andy Ward says. “Ideally I’d just get a few mowing jobs. That’s all I really need now. I don’t want to go back into cricket. After 40 years, that’s enough for me. I just want to have a bit of time. I want to enjoy summer.”

You may remember 1985 as the summer of 19 by Paul Hardcastle and Frankie by Sister Sledge, of A View to a Kill and the Breakfast Club. Live Aid raised £40m for famine relief. Boris Becker, aged just 17, sensationally won Wimbledon. A loaf of sliced white bread cost about 40p, a pint of milk 23p, a litre of petrol 43p. England won the Ashes 3-1 and a ticket for a decent seat at Lord’s to see them do it cost £9. And it was in 1985 that Ward, like Becker aged 17, joined the ground staff at Leicestershire’s Grace Road as a trainee. This summer, for the first time in four decades, he will not be there.