Hampshire's best ever bowling figures in a single first-class innings is Bob Cottam's 9-25 in this game between Lancashire and Hampshire at Old Trafford. Lancashire were dismissed in that first innings for 136. Hampshire won a very tense and low-scoring game by 13 runs.

1969 - Hampshire v Northants

August 27th, 28th and 29th  

Bournemouth 

Northants 325-5 dec. (110 overs) Mushtaq 154*

Hampshire 192 (72.2 overs) Richards 127*

Northants 149-8 dec. (52 overs) White 4-45

Hampshire 143 (53.2 overs)

Result: Northants won by 139 runs

Written by Charles Dusting

Barry playing a different game from everyone else!

The Hampshire game/performance that sticks in my memory above all others (and there are many) is the 3 day game Hants v Northants at Bournemouth in August 1969 - the second game of the Bournemouth cricket week - in particular Day 2. I was only 14 at the time and had left our family fortnight's holiday in Devon after one week to travel back to Bournemouth on my own by train, in order to stay with my grandmother, specifically so I could watch all the week's cricket. The first day dawned hot and sunny with a large crowd and Northants piled on a large total of around 350, with Mushtaq Mohammad contributing 154 not out. Also in their team were Peter Willey, Roger Prideaux, and the South African/Rhodesian opening pair of Hylton Ackerman and Fred Goldstein.

Day 2 - Northants had declared and Hampshire went in. The first point to notice was a total change in the weather - it was overcast, cool and murky, and there was a much smaller crowd of barely 1000. Those lucky people were held enthralled by the greatest innings I have ever seen in nearly 60 years of watching cricket. Hampshire were in trouble against the two-pronged spin attack of Mushtaq and Dennis Breakwell. Their strong batting line-up was literally skittled - with the likes of Jesty, Gilliat, etc. all going for single figures and being totally bamboozled by the spin. The wicket was obviously taking spin, and the conditions were also helping. But at the other end was Barry Richards playing a different game from everyone else. He looked totally at home, hitting boundary after boundary with consummate ease. This bearing in mind that all the other top batsmen had been at sea. Wickets kept falling at the other end, until the last man came in to join Richards. This was a young lad straight from Portsmouth Grammar School called Richard McIlwaine making his debut - he only played a handful of games more. He was primarily a bowler but somehow he stayed with Richards, who, the minute the last man came in, upped the tempo with nearly every ball he received being despatched to the boundary. The crowd were enthralled. Then at last, after a heroic effort, McIlwaine was dismissed leaving Richards unbeaten on 127 carrying his bat out of a total of 192.

I can remember the second the last wicket fell there was silence, and then, with no pre-prepared signal, every single person in the ground rose to their feet still in silence and applauded him all the way from the crease to the pavilion. He doffed his cap as usual and walked off in his casual manner just as if he had been out for a stroll in his back garden. I remember being virtually in tears - in my few years of watching cricket I had never seen anyone remotely as good as Barry Richards - I saw many others of his great innings (although not nearly enough) but this one really stood out. In 55 years of cricket watching since and seeing nearly all the great players, I have never seen any batsman that even approaches him. After this exhibition, the rest of the game was an anti-climax (as many games were when Barry Richards was dismissed), with Northants easing to victory with such a first innings lead.

This was my most memorable Hampshire moment, but I would also like to mention :-

 - the 1991 NatWest final with the duel in the setting sun between Robin Smith and Waqar Younis, and the incredible six hit by Jon Ayling.

 - the 2021 championship finale at Liverpool where Hampshire were 4 balls away from the Championship (although this does not show in the stats) by the narrowest of margins.

 - the match already reported on by Andy Murtagh against the 1975 Australians - again featuring the genius of Richards.

 - the classic B&H semi-final in 1977 featuring the Mike Procter 4 wickets in 5 balls, including a hat-trick.

and many many more, but I guessed far more people around today had attended these big games and the more recent games, whereas I would guess there are not too many still around today who had the privilege to be at Bournemouth that day in the late 60s in cool weather in front of a small crowd to watch the innings of a batting genius. But then I was not around to see his 155 not out at Hull in 1970 out of a total of just over 200, or his incredible century at Lords against MCC in 1974, and many more - what can they have been like?

My support has always been for Hampshire as a team rather than any one player, and there are Hampshire players who are all-time favourites for me - Malcolm Marshall, Peter Sainsbury, Robin Smith, Derek Shackleton, Trevor Jesty, to name but a few, including James Vince and Liam Dawson of the current team at the very least. But if I have to name the greatest batsman I have ever seen, there is only one candidate, even surpassing his truly great namesake by some margin - and that is really saying something ! Wasn't I lucky as a schoolboy growing up in Bournemouth to be able to watch him open the batting.

1977 - Hampshire v Gloucestershire

Benson and Hedges Cup Semi-Final

June 22nd  

Southampton 

Gloucestershire 180 (54.2 overs)

Hampshire 173 (54.3 overs)

Result: Gloucs won by 7 runs

Man of the Match: Mike Proctor

Written by Garry Lane

Proctorshire just too good on the day!

My favourite game was a Benson & Hedges semi-final v Gloucestershire in June 1977. This obviously was a very important match. There was a very good crowd who contributed to an electric atmosphere. 

This game is so memorable because it included the finest spell of fast bowling I have ever seen. The bowler was Mike Proctor of Gloucestershire. He was bowling from the 'Stadium end' with his run up starting just in front of the sight screen. It was absolutely devastating. His style was quite unique, delivering off the 'wrong foot'.

He dismissed both Greenidge and Richards (no mean feat) and went on to get 4 wicket in 5 balls, ending up with figures of 5-13. Despite this Hampshire put up a good fight and lost by only 7 runs with the last wicket to fall with 3 more balls remaining of the last over. A fantastic game of cricket. 

Another game which came close was the 1975 Gillette Cup match at The County Ground v Glamorgan. Hampshire scored 371-4 ( which was considered a massive score at the time) What is memorable was the opening stand of 210 between Richards and Greenidge. Their contrasting styles were a joy to watch. Richards was all about superb timing, Greenidge immense power. Richards scored 129 and Greenidge 177 which included 7 sixes and 17 fours. Hampshire bowled Glamorgan out for 207 and won comfortably by 164 runs.  

Hampshire v Northants

August 18th, 20th and 21st 1973 -  County Championship

Northlands Road, Southampton

Northants 108 and 148 (Mottram 4-27)

Hampshire 167 and 90-3

Result: Hampshire won by 7 wickets

Written by Dave Allen  

There have been so many games over so many years (65 to be precise) and yet when John asked me to choose and write about a game I didn’t hesitate. The context was I suppose just about perfect in that it was my 15th season of watching Hampshire so I had a pretty good idea what English cricket was all about, I was 23 so still young enough to have the enthusiasms of the fan and while I had seen the Hampshire Champions of 1961 I had then been a little too young to comprehend the magnitude of that achievement – and since then despite some fine players and good games there had been no hint of repetition.

Neither was there any great expectation as the 1973 season began. We had a pretty good (!) opening pair and some useful batsmen to come although Greenidge was only in his third full season while Jesty excelled more in limited overs matches back then. Our seam attack had been recruited in some haste to cover the recent departures of three Test players (Shackleton, White & Cottam) and there was very little in reserve. But we had a very fine, captain – perhaps my favourite of them all – and we had ‘Sains’ who knew how to win Championships. If you never saw him, I’m convinced that in every respect he has reincarnated on the cricket field at least in the form of Liam Dawson of recent years.

During the course of the 1973 season we started winning games and if not that we drew them (all three-day games of course) so by early August we were top of the table followed by Northants, with Surrey coming up on the rails. I can recall each day being a mixture of anticipation and anxiety, exhilaration and (brief) dismay; whatever was happening in the rest of my life Hampshire’s cricketers figured more prominently every day. In mid-August Hampshire had a quiet week while Northants and Surrey both won their games in hand, leaving Hampshire 14 points ahead of the midland county who were due at Northlands Road on Saturday 18 August. A win for Hampshire would make them firm favourites for the title but a reverse would throw everything wide open.

I arrived early on the Saturday, sitting in the overflowing pavilion area with my regular pals, Mike & Jenny, John, Ken, perhaps others. It was a heavy overcast day, not at all picturesque and the crowd was huge, anxious yet anticipating and hoping. Southampton was often a run-scoring ground so that morning the visiting captain Jim Watts called correctly and chose to bat. What happened next surely astonished everyone. Northants started carefully and reached 11 before Roy Virgin drove a ball back towards lanky Tom Mottram, never the most agile of fielders, who nonetheless swooped to his right to hold a caught-&-bowled inches from the ground (see picture above). Northants had some very good players but of their top six only Milburn and Watts reached 13 and they were soon 26-4, then 45-7 and 56-8. After lunch, a brief flurry from Sharp (28) and Bedi (32*) took them beyond three figures but 108 all out was nowhere near good enough with Taylor 4-30 and the other three seamers sharing the wickets.

The atmosphere lightened and the day brightened somewhat after that as Richards and Greenidge (45 each) plus Turner took Hampshire to a lead for the loss of just one wicket but there was a late twist; both openers had gone in identical fashion, stumped Sharp bowled Bedi, then Bob Cottam ‘back home’ knocked over Turner and Gilliat, caught Sainsbury off Bedi and Hampshire struggled to 152-8 at the close. Saturday night and an irrelevant Sunday were suddenly less relaxed, less fun then they might have been.

So we returned on Monday with the game well advanced. We added just 15 on a clearer Monday morning and Northants, beginning again 59 runs behind, started well until Hampshire’s left-arm spinner David O’Sullivan worked his magic as Bedi had done. Wickets fell at 34; 40; 71 and 82 and while Geoff Cook (30*) resisted, Greenidge held four catches and O’Sullivan and Mottram had four wickets apiece so that 148 all out left Hampshire a target of just 90.

Would it be straightforward? Cottam got Greenidge almost immediately and then caught Turner off Bedi (16-2) and when the Indian master bowled Jesty it was 49-3 with Gilliat nursing an injury. But Richards (37*) was offering an international standard masterclass against Bedi (14-4-36-2) and with Sainsbury alongside him they won the game around tea-time.

There was still work to do of course but as much as Friday 1 September 1961 which I followed but did not see, this is the game lodged in my memory so vividly even 50+ years later. I am glad then I could not know I would probably never see the like again but at least I did see Hampshire the County Champions.

October 2nd 2024

The tabs across the top of the Home Page on this website spell HAMPSHIRE and contain the following sections;

H     - HCH Events, How to join HCH, Website Guide, FAQ Sheet, Publications

A - Archive Room Updates and Collections

M - Memories and Matches from every season in first- class cricket

P - Photos and Players

S - Supporters page including all the e-Magazines

H - History of the Club, Hampshire’s Historians, Hampshire’s Grounds

I - International cricket played in Hampshire

R  - Records  and Statistics

E - Extras and miscellaneous articles on cricket played in Hampshire

We will be looking over the next few years to share images and information on much of the collection in the Archive Room on this website. It will also contain numerous essays about all aspects of Hampshire's rich cricket history, grouped under the headings above. 

If you wish to support Hampshire Cricket Heritage Ltd. in its work by becoming a Supporter, please complete the electronic Google form below. Alternatively, you will be able to obtain a paper copy of the Application Form from the Club Shop, from the middle of March onwards, which includes details of how to apply and indicates which details we just need from you. In order for all our records to be up to date and correct, we would ask that existing HCH Supporters who already joined us before 2020 also complete this form below.

We don't charge an annual fee to join, but we do hope that you can make a donation of £20 (or more - once or annually) in the knowledge that you will be making a contribution that will go towards the project undertaken by HCH Ltd. On the Supporters Page on this website, you will also be able to read about, during the season, some of the new acquisitions which have either been bought by your donations or which have been donated directly to the HCH Collection by our Supporters. Over the past twelve months, we have for example bought some limited copies of rare John Arlott books and ephemera relating to the 1961 Championship winning side.

For our Supporters we aim to send out a Supporters Newsletter in the form of an e-Magazine at least once a year. You will also be able to collect your HCH Supporters Pin Badge at any of the Book Sales held in the Club Shop during the season. In 2023 we were given rare scorecards, numerous books, valuable Hampshire Handbooks, prints, clothing and a very interesting cricket ball (used in a game where Phil Mead made yet another ton!) which have all gone into the Archive Collection. We are, of course, constantly looking for donations of any Hampshire Cricket articles of interest to add to our unique collection in the Archive Room in the Shane Warne Stand. 

Some of you will have enjoyed the chance to see some of the progress being made in that room during this winter's Members Tours with Dave Allen. We are holding our first Open Day in the Archive Room for all HCH supporters on Monday July 1st 2024.The plan is to continue to create more opportunities in 2025 - once the room  has been properly reorganised - for our HCH Supporters to visit the Archive Room. 

In order to join therefore, either please just complete the application form below by signing into Google and clicking on the word Form.  Please note you will not be able complete this electronic form without using Google. 

Google Application Form 

or complete the paper copy from the Club Shop and return it to us:

• either by posting it to Hampshire Cricket Heritage, with your donation as a cheque (made out to Hampshire Cricket Heritage Ltd.), addressed to the Archive Room, The Utilita Bowl, Botley Road, Southampton, S030 3HX

• or by dropping it off at the Club Shop - where you can pay your donation by card - in a sealed envelope addressed to Richard Griffiths, The Chairman, Hampshire Cricket Heritage Ltd. 

Some of our more recent HCH Publications will also be available throughout the year in the Club Shop to purchase. 

The Website for All Hampshire Cricket Heritage Supporters

Welcome to our new website for Hampshire Cricket Heritage Supporters. We relaunched this site ahead of the 2024 season because we want to provide you with a treasure trove of material on the history of cricket played by and in Hampshire over the past 300 years. We hope to add new content each month over the next few years. We have set most of the title pages up, at this stage, showing what we want to populate  - under the tab headings across the Home Page which spell HAMPSHIRE. The first few articles, already posted under various headings, should give you an idea of what we ultimately want to create for you. 

Hampshire Cricket Heritage is based in the Archive Room in the Shane Warne Stand at the ground. We are currently six months into a three year project to reorganise completely the amazing collection in that room. Those HCC members who have attended the Club's inaugural official Members' Stadium Tours this winter will already have visited us for the first time, under Dave Allen's guidance, as part of that tour. 

It is certainly our intention to engage far more closely, from now on, with our own HCH  Supporters who paid to join HCH before Covid-19. Whether you have always loved following Hampshire Cricket and signed up in the first year in 2019 as HCH Supporters, or are just new to following the county side for the first time last season, we hope you find plenty of interest on this site. If, as hopefully will be the case, you do want to find out more, meet us and join or rejoin Hampshire Heritage as a current HCH Supporter, you will  be able to read details on how to do this by clicking on the How to Join HCH Tab under the Home section on this site.

While viewing the growing sections over the next twelve months on this site - under the ARCHIVE ROOM Tab - about the various parts of the HCH collection, we hope you can all appreciate why we want to encourage future donations. Our collective aim is for this collection of Hampshire Cricket Memorabilia and Ephemera to continue to grow to be the finest of its kind in existence anywhere in the world. We also want to share it far more with others who really appreciate connecting with any aspect of Hampshire Cricket Heritage.

Writing on behalf of the dedicated and newly formed very active team of HCH Volunteers, Dave Allen, Richard Griffiths, David Ackland, Glen Williams, Ray Stubbington and myself, we all hope very much you enjoy this new resource on Hampshire Cricket. We also look forward very much to meeting many of you each year at one of our Book Sales in the Club Shop at a Championship game in May and August.  

Enjoy, in the meantime, beginning to engage with our new website content over the next few months and if you have any feedback or questions for us please get in touch at hantscccheritage@gmail.com.

John Winter

HCH Website Editor and HCH Archivist

The Archive Room is run by The Archive Room Committee of Hampshire Cricket Heritage which was established in November 2023.  The current members of that committee are Richard Griffiths, Ray Stubbington, Glen Williams and John Winter. Our aim is to re-organise this room over the next 12 months, cataloguing all its contents, with a view to making it more accessible to our HCH supporters in 2025. If you have anything that relates to Hampshire Cricket that you could donate to our growing Archive Room Collection, please just email us at hantscccheritage@gmail.com

2024 Hampshire Cricket Heritage Annual Report – November 2024

This has been a busy and rewarding year for the small team of volunteers helping to run Hampshire Cricket Heritage, under the Chairmanship of Richard Griffiths. We have doubled the number of HCH supporters this year: we now have more than eighty people receiving our monthly email bulletin from David Ackland, our membership secretary, during the season. They have all donated to our cause in some way or another. That number now also includes a few former players, after we helped with the organisation of an extremely enjoyable Former Players Reunion Lunch at the Utilita Bowl at the end of June. Details on how to join HCH are on our new website, using this link:

https://www.hampshirecountycricketheritage.co.uk/Hampshire-Cricket-Heritage/how-to-join-hch

The driving force behind so much that is great at HCH for more years than he cares to admit, Dave Allen, has been busier than ever with his research and writing. Dave is working jointly, for example, with Ray Stubbington on updating the Hampshire Cricketers A-Z. Ray’s role has been to link a photograph of each player to Dave’s text. HCH has published three more booklets this year, which are all priced £5, and they have each sold well. Stephen Saunders’ Ordained Hampshire Cricketers was followed by John Winter’s A Glorious Week - Hampshire v Warwickshire and Hampshire v Worcestershire in August 1974. The third booklet, published in August and written by Dave Allen, celebrated the 10th Anniversary of Hampshire winning the Second Division Title and is called - Going up! Dave is currently deep in research about 18th Century Hampshire Cricket for an exciting new publication due out in 2025. For more details on all our publications and how to obtain them, use this link:

https://www.hampshirecountycricketheritage.co.uk/Hampshire-Cricket-Heritage/hch-publications

Glen Williams and Ray Stubbington have been hard at work re-organising and cataloguing many of our collections in the Archive Room in the Shane Warne Stand at the Utilita Bowl, as we seek to make the winter Hampshire Members’ Tours ever more interesting. They have also taken receipt of some wonderful Hampshire cricket related donations this year, including a screen which has some of the oldest cricket scorecards ever produced. This famous screen, which has been in the possession of the Butler family of Hambledon for seven generations is covered with the original scores of the matches of the Hambledon Club from the year 1777 down to the break-up of the Club in 1788, (when it was absorbed into the Hampshire County). Having previously been housed at Lord’s, it is now on permanent loan with HCH. To learn more, just click here:

https://www.hampshirecountycricketheritage.co.uk/supporters-page/supporter-donations-to-the-hch-collection

Two Second Hand Cricket Book Sales, held in May and August - overseen by Glen and run by the whole team - at The Club Shop again proved a valuable source of income for us to be able to make some more important purchases for our growing collection. These include limited edition signed monographs about former Hampshire players, written by John Arlott.

Finally, we have been pleased with the reception for the new Hampshire Cricket Heritage Website. I have posted new material every week on a wide range of themes relating to the heritage and history of Hampshire Cricket. I have also kept a weekly diary running through the season documenting the Club’s eventual second place finish in the County Championship:

https://www.hampshirecountycricketheritage.co.uk/memories/johns-journal-of-the-2024-season

One of the new weekly features for the close season is a section entitled My Favourite Game - 75 Not out! It is a celebration of Dave Allen reaching 75 this October and the plan is for 75 current players, former players or cricket supporters to pick and write about their favourite ever Hampshire game where they were there on the ground. Andrew Murtagh and John Rice have set the ball rolling for the former players and you can read more at:

https://www.hampshirecountycricketheritage.co.uk/memories/my-favourite-game

Next year, we are already planning more publications and more ways to share our growing collection with cricket supporters via the website. Any visitor to the recently named Utilita Bowl will be able to see so many of the displays created by Dave Allen already, and it is that tradition we will also seek to build upon. Our eventual dream and stated aim, of course, is a Club Museum at the ground, but in the meantime, we will endeavour to make the existing Archive Room a better resource centre and small display space for our HCH supporters. 

John Winter

HCH Website Creator and Editor

In the first week of October 2024, we were given - on permanent loan - a truly prized artefact for our growing Hampshire Cricket collection. 

It was previously housed in the Lord's Museum.

Mark Butler and his family have lived for 7 generations in Hambledon, until the house was sold in 2022. One of the more valuable artefacts in the house was a screen with a lot of old score cards, including one when Hambledon defeated the rest of England in 1777, thanks to the skills of the likes of John Small and Richard Nyren. His family has been very concerned that such an important part of cricket’s history should never be lost, particularly as at is still in such good condition. The screen was housed at Lords for some time (back in the 90’s), but the then new curator had different plans, so it was returned to their Hambledon home. Their thought has always been that it remains part of Hampshire history, and Mark therefore contacted Hampshire Cricket Heritage via e-mail last month for us to take custody of it. Not only has the Butler family very kindly donated it to HCH, Mark even dropped it off with us at the Utilita Bowl - see picture of Mark above.  We can't say thank you enough for the culture of giving that now exists towards Hampshire Cricket Heritage and we are only too delighted to take receipt of this unique screen from the extremely generous Butler family. They have also provided information on the screen for us to publish on our Website. The link below takes you to that piece in the Other Items in the Archive Room Collection tab on this site. It includes research from Ian Maun, the notable cricket Historian, who spent many an hour studying the screen for one of his books.

Under the Memories Tab on this site, you will be able to follow the HCH Website Editor's Journal for the 2024 season. It is based loosely on the format of The Cricketer Magazine's weekly record of past summers in their Autumn Annual. It includes a weekly summary of Hampshire's matches, general cricketing observations for the 2024 summer, as well as occasional comparisons, contrasts and parallels with the history making 1968 season for the County Championship. That was the year before the creation of the John Player League, but one which saw the arrival of a number of world stars arriving for the whole season around the counties. 

Please note in the Journal - featuring predominantly Hampshire in 2024 - the gold colour text  relates to the 1968 season. Click on the Link below to start reading the 2024 season weekly review.