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Courage, soldier. Ben Stokes’s England team may be heading into the third Ashes Test already 2-0 down, but not everyone in English cricket is fazed. There is one group tailor-made for this scenario, a crack(pot) unit who can lay claim to be the ultimate doomsday preppers. Have your dreams been shattered? Are you crushed beneath the weight of unmet expectation? Then it’s time to join the Barmy Army, son.
Already their advance guard are moving in on Adelaide, the city where they officially formed 30 years ago. England’s most famous – and per capita noisiest – travelling fans will be hoping for an anniversary win-against-the-odds, like the one they witnessed on that 1994-95 tour. And whatever happens on the pitch, off it the parties will be long and loud.
Even Bazball’s nuclear implosion can’t shake this crew of hardened veterans. They’ve been watching England’s batting collapse since before Jamie Smith was born. They’ve seen more dropped catches than Jofra Archer has Test wickets. Their personal stats as an Ashes touring group read: played 37, lost 27, won 6 (I am excluding the Covid series which fans couldn’t travel to). If anyone knows how to weather a whitewash, it’s someone like Dave Peacock, one of their founding members. “The cricket’s been very, very disappointing,” he admits, “but we’re the lucky ones, because we’re on holiday. It’s probably harder for the people at home.”
Certainly, if you’re watching along on TV, the Barmy Army do seem to be everywhere this series. Australian cameras at the grounds sometimes appear more interested in the Barmies than in their own fans. TNT Sports regularly uses them as banter-primed buildup to a day’s play, having sponsored their T-shirts and their trumpeter. Even the players on the field are heralding them. On the second day at the Gabba, when a man clad as King Charles led a chorus of Jerusalem, Joe Root gave him a wave from the non-striker’s end.
It’s possible that the Barmy Army’s combination of longevity and ubiquity has now obscured quite how stunning their takeover of travelling fandom has been. Three decades ago a handful of backpackers were drawn together in comical self-deprecation at England’s woeful away record. Today their legacy is so synonymous with the men’s Test side that their colourful, “maverick” crowd is all but establishment itself. They’ve certainly come a long way since Peacock first got them chanting, as a 27-year-old who had recently been made redundant.
He still remembers the excited anticipation of the opening day of the 1994-95 tour, before Michael Slater carved Phil DeFreitas’s first ball for four at the Gabba. With Australia 224 for two, Peacock started a six-person conga in the stands, winding up the locals with a song about convicts. “The Aussie fans hurled abuse at us, then threw plastic cups – the stuff that we still get today,” he remembers. “But when we got back our little group of 30 England followers had all joined in.”
After defeat in Brisbane, England lost one-day and tour matches to Zimbabwe, Australia A and even an academy side. Anyone following Mike Atherton’s men around the country must have been barmy indeed. By the Melbourne and Sydney Tests their ranks had swelled to the hundreds, and but not everyone appreciated the football-terrace flavour they brought to the cricket ground. Their first critic, Ian Wooldridge of the Daily Mail, called them “the detritus of the English national social security system”.
The players, however, genuinely enjoyed their presence at the grounds, and even their company in the bars. When England pulled off a consolation win in the fourth Test in Adelaide, Alec Stewart beckoned Peacock up to the team balcony and had him lead the celebrations, Tetley’s in hand. You’d have thought that Covid, social media and an ever-tightening England bubble would have distanced the fans and players since. Instead, teams have treated them with increasing respect. Even Mark Wood’s injury announcement this week made a point to thank them for being “class as always”.
But then, the sheer numbers the Barmy Army can conjure are as attractive to the English game as they are to overseas venues. At this Ashes alone, their tours will host 3,000 paying travellers, with an events-packed programme that requires dozens of people to deliver. All kinds of celebrations are planned for the 30th anniversary next week, including a Twenty20 match (dubbed The Bashes) that will take place at the beautiful University Ground the day before the Test begins.
This is, after all, an organisation born of cricketing passion and commercial nous. The reason the Barmy Army date themselves to the Adelaide Test is because that was when they started selling souvenir shirts. The short initial run was so instantly popular – and profitable – that they kept the Hindley Street printers in work all week. Since then Paul Burnham and Gareth Evans, Peacock’s co-founders, have helped turn a fan community that liked to throw parties in pubs into an industry-leading tour operator.
That brings it own challenges, especially at a time when sport is looking to shed some of its lads-lads-lads image. The Barmy Army’s managing director, Chris Millard, is keen to point out that 30% of their travelling fans are now female. As times have changed, the chants have had to get cleaner, too. “Things that you’d say 30 years ago you can no longer say today, and that’s absolutely right,” says Millard. “We can’t tell someone how to behave within the confines of their seat, but we won’t support songs that are offensive, or have swearwords in.”
Might the Barmy Army mellow naturally? The average supporter age is now 47 – approaching middle age, like the founders themselves, who have been happy to step away from the daily operation. Peacock is enjoying this tour purely as a punter – leaving young professionals to populate the Barmy Army’s social media, and present its podcast. “You forget how hard it used to be to communicate with each other,” laughs Peacock. “We used to do it all by word of mouth – ‘everyone’s going to the pub!’”
As for this Ashes series, the impossible dream of the 3-2 turnaround still lingers, which is very mid-90s indeed. And if England do lose in Adelaide … well, South Africa next Christmas looks nice.
English (US)