When it comes to making friends on foreign fields the Barmy Army plants flags of conquest all over the world. Although it exists primarily to organise overseas tours for followers of the England cricket team, this regiment of happy wanderers is essentially a glee club for people who enjoy watching cricket abroad in the winter months.

Would the Barmy Army have acted so decisively, one wonders, if someone had declared support for the party led by Zack ‘the tit-whisperer’ Polanski?

Would the Barmy Army have acted so decisively, one wonders, if someone had declared support for the party led by Zack ‘the tit-whisperer’ Polanski?

Established in 1995 by folk who considered themselves ‘barmy’ to support players who lost more Tests on the road than they won, this rag-tag-bobtail operation swiftly developed into a commercial apparatus of some clout. Wherever England played cricket people were drawn like moths to a flame.

‘Everywhere we go-oh’, they sang, ‘people wanna kno-oh’. They still do. The Barmies make cheerful ambassadors, and knock over a few pennies for local charities wherever their chariot takes them. It costs a few bob to follow England round the........

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