"​I tried to seize Lord's Cricket Ground for the international proletariat"

Late last month, I wrote an article on Lord's Cricket Ground and its status as the natural home of the left-wing ultra. My reasoning went something like this: left-wing ultras are bored in the football off-season; a full Middlesex membership for Lord's is cheap and inclusive; spectators are allowed to take tins of Tyskie into the ground; and you're practically encouraged to read up on politics during the more tedious periods of play – even if that traditionally means leafing through The Financial Times as opposed to Das Kapital.

Accordingly, I claimed that I'd like to see left-wing ultras bringing peaceful revolution to the Home of Cricket. Soon after the article was published, my vision of an ascendant cricketing proletariat came to occupy my every waking hour.

Before long, following in the historical footsteps of such great leftists as the Levellers, the Diggers, Maximilien Robespierre and Peppa Pig, I decided to try to make my mad utopian ideal a reality. Perusing the Lord's fixture list, I saw that on May 7th – the date of the General Election – the ground was hosting a 'Corporate Cricket Day', one for which the businesses in attendance would be paying a cool £10,000 (plus VAT) per team of nine players. To my relief, the price of admission did not reflect this outlay. In fact, the Lord's website advertised free entry for the game.

The opportunity to launch my polite, left-wing coup on so symbolic an occasion – plus one affiliated to the hyper-exclusive Marylebone Cricket Club – was too good to pass up. I rallied my most radical friends. I despatched open invitations to university Marxist groups, London feminist societies, trade unionists and more. I ordered quite a few copies of the Morning Star. I even emailed ahead to Lord's, assuring the administrators that we, the left-wing cricket ultras, would be considerate, courteous and proper. I also asked if I might interview a few gentlemanly MCC members, just to make sure that any post-match report would maintain some form of political balance.

So it happened that, having got up and voted early, I set out to Lord's as most were only just awakening to the cloudy skies of Election Day. Signs of counter-revolution had become apparent just before I left home, when I received a communication saying that no spectators would be allowed in to the game – this despite all the website details. A subsequent call to the Lord's ticket office, and I was told that attendance would actually be fine. I suspected a conspiracy against my new cricketing order, while I was nagged by a sneaking regret at having naively announced my intentions to Lord's monolithic officialdom.

Still, I did the only thing a leftist can do in the face of suppression: I stuck firmly to my principles, and cracked on.

Arriving in St John's Wood, I found five rather well-dressed blokes waiting for me near the North Gate, and nobody else. Five blokes. A modest start to the revolution, then, and more of a bourgeoisie uprising than a proletarian one. Even so, it felt like I had created a small but determined political movement, all of us united by ethics, a sense of comradeship and a love of affordable Polish lager. The corporate cricket called to us; we were ready to answer.

Unfortunately, we had no real answers to being denied entry at the gate. The stewards seemed apologetic, but informed us that they'd just received instructions that nobody bar company guests was to be allowed in – which all seemed rather Kafkaesque. We were sent to the iconic Grace Gate, but turned away there too. Our gentle dissent was no use. Reactionary forces had mobilised against us. I considered some sort of nude sit in, perhaps even a dirty protest, but the futility overcame me. Our little band of ultras was forced to cede to the establishment's mighty power.

There was still the small matter of circulating 20-odd socialist newspapers to attend to. As we soon discerned, the residents of St John's Wood have very little sympathy with communism – one man in a tailored suit had never even heard of collectivised farming. After half an hour of half-hearted agitating, 20-odd papers remained undistributed. Another blow to the revolution.

After all these setbacks, it was time to sit down and have a Tyskie. An assembly was called, and it was decided that we'd give up on actually watching any cricket and go to the pub instead. A pleasant few hours later, we all went home to be greeted by a rather distressing exit poll. Not long after that, the left-wing ultras were sat about their various homes, despondent at the thought of another five years of Conservative government. All in all, quite a painful day.

Nonetheless, we are not defeated. This was our 1905 Revolution – an abortive popular coup, followed by crushing retaliation from government – yet it was also a political awakening and, moreover, an oddly enjoyable outing. We turned up, discussed society, laughed off our oppression and all the while basked in a pleasant day-drunk glow, just as good cricket fans should. Next time our amiable movement will find its place in the Home of Cricket, hopefully with a bit more variety in terms of gender and background; the group certainly has room for growth. In the meantime, Lord's hierarchy has – to its credit – grown itself, recognising our efforts with good grace. We will indeed be back soon.

@W_F_Magee Hi William, apologies for the confusion, we won't make the same mistake again. Hope to have you back soon.
— Lord's Ground (@HomeOfCricket) May 7, 2015

So, on Corporate Cricket Day, we were thwarted. One day in the near future, we will succeed.

Here's to the polite revolution. Cricket fans of the world, unite!

Will's peaceable left-wing movement returns to Lord's on the 27th June. Contact him on Twitter for more details.