Do you remember how it felt: the first time that ambition stirred, the first time that a passion was awakened? It is a dreary life if such a feeling does not make its acquaintance at least once. When it happens, it is magical - the whole world suddenly opens up before you, the possibilities seem endless.

I remember the moment it happened to me. One afternoon, in the summer of 1978, I was playing cricket in the back garden and my dad called me in to watch a young England batsman make his debut. “Watch how still he keeps his head,” my dad said. I did watch and was enthralled as David Gower swivel-pulled his first ball for four. Ambition stirred. Eleven years later - magically, unbelievably - he gave me my first England cap.

The moment when I suspected that the realisation of a dream was a possibility came in the blissful summer of 1983, when I represented the North of England Under-15s at the English Schools Cricket Association (ESCA) festival in Surrey. Matches were played at Caterham School, Cheam, Epsom, Purley and Banstead cricket clubs and there I was, a humble lad from a pretty shabby part of north Manchester, mixing it with the finest schoolboy cricketers in the land.

There was Nasser Hussain, with a mass of black curls and a reputation as a wrist-spin wizard; there was Mark Ramprakash, who, we were told, was a genius but difficult. There were other names you will have heard of - David Leatherdale, who went on to play for Worcestershire, Trevor Ward (Kent) and Martin Speight (Sussex) - and many others, such as Ed Flanders, who you will not know. He is making a packet in the Far East now, so do not shed too many tears for him.

I scored a few runs (a couple of half-centuries against the Midlands and the South) and took a few wickets (four against the West and four against the South). By the end of the week, once I realised that not every ball was going to spit off a length, as they invariably did up north, I reckoned I could hold my own. Despite their reputations, I knew Nasser had the yips and could not bowl and I reckoned that I could score as many runs as Ramps. The possibilities seemed endless.

Twenty-two 15 and 16-year-olds were experiencing some of those emotions at Lord's yesterday, when a Bunbury England Under-15s team took on an Under-16s team, at the invite of Keith Bradshaw, the chief executive of MCC, to celebrate 60 years of the ESCA. That the ESCA festival is now called the Bunbury ESCA festival needs explaining because, without the enterprise, energy and enthusiasm of David English, Mr Bunbury, the feeling experienced by those schoolboy cricketers yesterday and every year at the festival for the past 22 years would not have been possible.

English got a call in 1986 from Cyril Cooper, who was in charge of the ESCA at the time, and was told that a festival that had produced some of the great names of English cricket was in danger of dying through lack of funding. English had found his middle-aged calling. Through his Bunbury team - a kind of Harlem Globetrotters of cricket - he has raised more than £11million in that time, £4million of which has gone towards the ESCA festival. He has also helped to fund two Under-15 World Cups and a South Africa Under-15 tour to England in 1992.

That such a career-forming, talent-generating event almost died because of lack of funding and is still reliant on charity in a sport awash with money is a disgrace. There, in a nutshell, is the most perfect example of how the finances of the game have been emasculated by the 18 first-class counties at the expense of all the other legitimate interest groups who ought to have some claim on the monies flooding in.

Where would you prefer the money to be spent, on a phalanx of useless overseas players and their hangers-on; further layers of irrelevant administration at the ECB; on models such as Caprice, who was paid a fat fee to help to launch the 1999 World Cup; or on helping boys to fulfil their cricketing potential?

Well at least English has got his priorities right. He remembers the first tournament that he sponsored, at Harrow in 1987, when John Crawley, still the best young cricketer he has seen at these festivals, played like a dream. Then there was the golden year of 1992: Andrew Flintoff, Ben Hollioake, David Sales, Gareth Batty, Alex Tudor, Liam Botham and Owais Shah.

Come to think of it, he says, the year before was not too bad, either: Vikram Solanki, Phil Neville, Marcus Trescothick and Paul Collingwood. He could go on: 52 Bunburys have represented England, nine playing for their country right now.

English does not do this for publicity. In a previous life, as president of RSO records, he had enough publicity to last a lifetime and enough close friends in the music industry, including Eric Clapton, to know that fame and happiness do not necessarily go together. But because of his celebrity contacts and because he teeters just on the right side of that fine line between eccentricity and madness, he gets his share.

There were others, though, at Lord's yesterday who have spent half a lifetime involved in the ESCA, unheralded but not, at least by former ESCA players, unappreciated.

One such is Ken Lake from Humberside, who managed the England Schools Under-15 team that I played for all those years ago. He was looking after the under-15s yesterday and spent the day in the visiting team's dressing-room at Lord's keeping a paternal eye on his charges and reminiscing about those who have come through the ESCA ranks. Ramprakash, he says, is the best player he has seen at that level. And young Atherton? “Well, you liked to bat,” he said. “You'd bat through a storm.” Couldn't bat through a breeze now.

He reckons today's players to be more worldly wise, but that standards have dropped slightly. Shorter summer terms, the advent of AS levels in the lower sixth year and the unstoppable move towards young sportsmen specialising in their main sport ever earlier are some of the reasons why schools cricket is feeling the pinch. Yesterday it was noticeable how many boys from Asian backgrounds were playing, including the delightfully named Basil Akram, a seam bowler, and how many - roughly about half - were from state schools.

The cricket, which was a mixture of the naive and cute, provided rich entertainment and finished in a tie. The influence of the televised game was there: the on-field huddle before the under-16s began to bowl, the glove-tapping between batsmen at the end of each over and the round of clapping that accompanied every ball. But after a week when all the talk has been of the Stanford millions, central contracts, increment contracts and, for God's sake, points awarded for Test matches and one-day internationals, the innocence was refreshing.

English's enthusiasm for the boys is something to behold and is based largely, I think, on the particular age group he has got involved with. These boys are old enough to know a little and not yet old enough to know much - an intriguing stage of life. As English says, “they are faintly worldly wise but still peeking over the top of the Coca-Cola cans”.

In a few years' time, copying the antics of a couple of England players this summer, it will be a can of Red Bull artfully placed on the balcony, for maximum exposure.