It was a bit of an adventure from the North West. Dad drove down, we found somewhere to park and had a decent walk to the ground. We sat at the Nursery End, just to the left of where the media centre is now positioned. In those days, an English cup final had that real sense of occasion about it, like the FA Cup equivalent at Wembley, the Boat Race or the Grand National, and I remember quite a few incidents from it vividly – Lancashire made 274 for 7 and David Fulton’s response was to walk out in a sun hat and pull one of Wasim Akram’s first balls to the boundary. But Lancashire kept taking wickets at crucial times and although De Silva obviously played well, it was all but over when he holed out to Graham Lloyd going for his fourth six.

Afterwards we strolled on the sacred Lord’s turf – a few more excitable supporters ran on the second the thirty-five-run win was clinched – savouring the moment and the atmosphere. We wandered about in front of the pavilion to witness the trophy presentation, and I clearly recall thinking how much I wanted to be up there, part of a successful team like that, playing in front of that many people. Twenty-odd thousand to see you play for Lancashire at the home of cricket – it was the stuff of dreams to a Burnley lad.

As a Lancastrian, and this applies to Yorkshiremen, too, the club badge is revered from a young age. There’s a huge passion for the two roses counties and you grow up wanting to wear a rose on your chest – red if you’re from God’s County, and white if you live among the queer folk over the hills.

The emotional attachment to Lancashire includes animosity towards Yorkshire – that goes with the territory – similar to the fierce rivalry that exists between Burnley and Blackburn football clubs. There is a real us and them feel about it all, and that Lancashire team I started watching in the 1990s was chock-full of local lads. Apart from Wasim, the club’s overseas player, the others were generally from within the county boundaries, and that gave young lads hope that they could follow on in future years.

Yorkshire were obviously even stricter than Lancashire up until the early 1990s but the distinct sense of identity that side brought was part of the attraction. That sense of identity got lost a little bit with the introduction of Kolpak players, and a more frequent movement of players from county to county, but from my experience of a Championship fixture in 2011 there remains an unmistakably competitive and parochial edge to Lancashire v Yorkshire games. There were plenty of Lancashire-born players in our team and Yorkshire-born in the opposition and we felt that edge. When you play professional sport you actually want that edge to be there and rivalry makes games like that extra special.

Fact is that Wasim Akram was a world superstar but my hero from that Lancashire team was actually Peter ‘Digger’ Martin. I just used to love the way he bowled. For a big man he had a pretty cool approach to the crease, and because he swung the ball away at pace he was someone I wanted to model myself on when I bowled. I also admired Glen Chapple. He probably won’t like being reminded of this but I wasn’t even a teenager when I watched him from the stands, running in to bowl, with Digger or Wasim at the other end.

In future years it was rather strange for me to be a part of the Lancashire attack with these guys. I ended up playing with Peter at the end of his career, and then for a decade with Chappie. Undoubtedly they helped with my grounding at the club, and taught me good habits in the way they went about their business. The side they had been a part of, and the one I joined latterly, was a very successful one with some great local players like Neil Fairbrother, Mike Watkinson and Ian Austin. As a young lad you really felt like they passed down the knowledge.

My interest in cricket developed through Dad, who, as I’ve said, was Burnley’s second XI captain. Mum used to push me around the outfield in my pram, so it was always destined to play a huge role in my life. As soon as I could toddle about, I used to go down and watch him play every Saturday, then, when I was old enough, I was coerced into becoming team scorer. Scoring is a rite of passage for most sons of cricket-playing fathers, I guess, and my dad also came to watch me for the club’s youth teams.

At Under-13 level, we played eight-a-side cricket in which you batted in pairs. My batting partner was my cousin Lee, who was also a left-hander. Not only did they put me with him because we were related but because we complemented each other. Although I was technically okay, I couldn’t hit it off the square, and am still in the process of learning to do that, while he smacked it everywhere. Neither did my medium-pace bowling stand out at that age. I had always bowled but never got it off the straight, really, or had any pace either. In comparison to my contemporaries, I was very much run of the mill, and would bowl first or second change.

Nevertheless, I was always keen and went to Lancashire trials on an annual basis from the age of eleven onwards.