Cricket, like all other sports, has seen innumerable changes during the past 50 years but perhaps the greatest (from a journalists' point of view at least) has been the development of international air travel.

As recently as 1962/3 England teams still journeyed Down Under by sea rather than air, with the outward leg taking three and a half weeks from Tilbury to Fremantle via a brief stop-over for a "picnic match" in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka).

"Things were very different in those days," recalls John Woodcock, The Times' esteemed former cricket writer. "We were all together – the team and the press – and naturally we travelled in first class in great luxury, which was one of the benefits of going by sea. They (the players) got to know us and we got to know them very well. We all made great friends."

The current Ashes tour is the first sans Woodcock since he made his Ashes debut way back in 1950/1, a run of 15 successive tours over 52 years. "Fifteen Christmases in Australia is quite enough," he said emphatically.

And besides, the times they have a changed. "There were many benefits of going by sea, not the least of which was to allow the team a chance to rest before acclimatising in Australia. I remember my first tour in 1950/1 we left Tilbury on September 14th and the 1st Test didn't start until December 1st, so there were 77 days before the first Test.

"Nowadays there's just over three weeks and it doesn't give the team a chance to bed down at all. It's very bad luck on them and it's a rotten itinerary. No side, no matter how good, would find it easy," said Woodcock.

"It's one hell of a thing to ask of a side to go out there and play a very strong Australian side within three weeks of arriving and having played no proper cricket. On all those early tours I went on all the players would have played 10-12 first-class innings by the time they played the 1st Test. They would also have played on all the Test grounds. It's another world."

The size of the press corps was also considerably smaller back then with only a dozen reporters covering the 1946/7 tour, although that had already grown to 19 by 1950/1. The three and a half week outward journey allowed time for great friendships to flourish in what was a far more relaxed touring climate than today's hectic non-stop schedules.

"We had five or six ports of call along the way and we had great fun in places such as Aden, Naples and so on. It was absolutely wonderful and we also had awful fun playing deck games. It was a marvellous three and a half weeks, and absurdly luxurious.

"Neville Cardus was on my first tour and we became great friends. He was very, very good to me and after dinner he used to say 'Come on Johnny, I've got two deck chairs, two glasses of port and two cigars. Come and listen to me and don't waste your time dancing'," recalled Woodcock.

And once you did finally arrive in the Perth port of Fremantle the entire pace of the tour allowed for far greater exploration by both players and press alike.

"In those days there was such a tempo that four of us – including Jim Swanton and I - drove around. We picked up a car in Melbourne, we drove from Melbourne to Sydney, Sydney to Brisbane, Brisbane back to Sydney and from Sydney across to Adelaide. They were pretty roughish roads back then but that was the time to do it. Now they just get on an aeroplane and they have absolutely no time at all to take in the culture," he bemoaned.

One tour in particular sticks in the mind of Woodcock, his second to Australia as cricket correspondent.

"My favourite tour was 1954/5 when we retained the Ashes after having won them (in England) for the first time since 1932/3 in Australia. We regained them at The Oval in 1953 and then we retained them with Hutton's side and I was of the same age as most of the players then so we all got on very well.

"We were all great friends and I suppose that was my happiest tour if I could replay one. To win the Ashes was a great achievement because we had lost the 1st Test by an innings and 154 runs, but we then won the next three. It was a wonderful achievement."

The third of those victories was at Adelaide and signalled a night of jubilation by players and press. "You can say that again," said Woodcock as the memories came flooding back. "It was absolutely wonderful and we were all such great friends.

"It's all so different now but back then it was a lot friendlier. It was quite another world altogether, off the field as well as on it."

With the ship full of "lovely young Australian ladies", the luxury of first-class accomodation and the relaxed atmosphere between players and press it's no surprise that Woodcock looks back so fondly on those early tours in the 1950s and 1960s.

"On tours back then the players often had their own team room in the hotels, practically everywhere they went, and one would often go in and have a drink on the way up to one's room. It would always happen – and in India too – but it would never happen now. You're lucky to get the time of day from the players and managers now as I understand," he lamented.

But Woodcock appreciates his fortunate in having covered the game during cricket's 'Golden Age' and is only sad that today's tours allow little if no time for extra-curricular activities.

"Australia is a wonderful place to watch cricket. There are some marvellous grounds there and a wonderful climate, and that's why they are so much better than we are," he argued. "But I've been so lucky in that I've seen them (England) win the Ashes out there more than once and I've been out there with some very fine sides."

At that the doyen of modern cricket writers took a long and thoughtful pause before adding, somewhat wearily: "But to be perfectly honest I don't particularly warm to the way the game's played now. We had something like three weeks in Perth just gradually easing into the tour,... it's all so different now."

24 Oct, 2002