Hampshire Cricket Heritage will host its customary two annual Book Sales in the Club Shop at the Utilita Bowl in April and August 2026
Compiled and edited by John Winter
Available in the Utilita Bowl Club Shop from 20th August
Price £25
This brand new book, entitled My Favourite Game, features original writing from (or an interview with) current players, former players, administrators and supporters. All the articles focus on a single first-class or one-day game involving Hampshire. They include ones written by the likes of Trevor Jesty, Kyle Abbott, Liam Dawson, Joe Weatherley, Chris Wood, David Gower, Mark Nicholas and Barry Richards - especially for this book. From all the great games that these Hampshire heroes played in for our county, which one did they choose as their personal favourite?
How to make sure you can obtain your copy by pre-ordering in July 2026
Email hantscccheritage@gmail.com
to reserve your copy(ies) for collection at the UB on 20th August. If you want to pre-order postal copies, just add your address and the number of copies required (£25 each plus £6 p&p).
Pay HCH Account 53902599
Sort code 53-50-36
All money from book sales goes to HCH.
Pre-ordered books will be posted out during August.
Rod Bransgrove has very kindly written the foreword to this book. In the final chapter, Dave Allen has chosen three other special matches that he wishes that he could have seen from the distant past. There are also many previously unseen Hampshire cricket photos in My Favourite Game. The matches include ones against all the other 17 first-class counties and touring sides, across eight decades.
There are scorecards - produced by Bob Murrell - to accompany every match in this 380-page hardcover book. Regular match-day going supporters like Rob Hughes, Colin Whitlock and Jo Summerton have all chosen and spoken about their favourite game as well. Crucially, the writer or interviewee for all 75 games was there on the ground - to either play in or watch the particular game that is featured. All money from the sales of this book will go to HCH.
HAMPSHIRE WOMEN’S CRICKET
July 8th 2026 marks the 10th anniversary of the first and only time that Hampshire Women played a match on the main pitch at the Ageas Bowl in the amateur era. Essex Women were the opponents that day in 2016 and it was also the first double-header to be played on the ground, as the Men took on their counterparts in a T20 match in the evening.
In order to mark this special anniversary, Ray Stubbington has produced a commemorative HCH information sheet for supporters which will be available at the ground on Wednesday for the Hampshire Hawks Women's game against the Blaze.
July 2026 HCH Photo Quiz
Name these three grounds that Hampshire will play at before the end of the 2026 season
Tuesday 21st July - Scarborough
Sunday 9th August - Hove
Tuesday 15th - 18th September - Leicester
A BIOGRAPHY
By
AJ EVANS & STEPHEN SAUNDERS
Also available for £5 (plus £3.50 postage) - by contacting Hampshire Cricket Heritage at hantscccheritage@gmail.com
The life of Alfred John Evans is a truly remarkable one. Born on May 1st 1889 at Highclere, Alfred John, known as "Johnnie', played for Hampshire after he left Winchester College in 1908. HS Altham wrote of him: "A somewhat uncertain starter with the bat, his method once he got going, was both classical and impressive". Going up to study at Oriel College Oxford, he won his cricket Blue as a Freshman in 1909, scoring 79 and 46. He also played against Cambridge in the three following seasons, as a hard-driving batsman and medium-paced bowler. He led the side in 1911. In 1910 he represented his University at racquets and in 1909 and 1910 at golf. He played cricket for Hampshire in 1911 and, after serving with distinction in the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War, when he earned fame for his escapes from enemy prison-camps, he assisted Kent and M.C.C. His Wisden Obituary records, "In 1921, on the strength of an innings of 69 not out for M.C.C. against the Australians, he was chosen for England in the Test match at Lord's, but was not a success." With scores of 4 and 5, he became "a one Test wonder", but he went to lead a most amazing life, that involved serving the country in a unique way in World War 2 and becoming a distinguished writer - amongst many other adventures, roles and experiences in Europe. Stephen Saunders has used extensive original notes from AJ Evans unfinished autobiography to produce this truly fascinating read which is number 11 in the HCH series.
We are very grateful to have received a donation from long-time Hampshire supporter, Denis Fry, of a set of 24 Cigarette Cards ‘HCCC Sunday League Era’ which were designed, reproduced, printed and supplied by Brindley Cards. All 24 cards have been signed by the players of the time. Only a limited number were printed and probably even fewer were signed.
They were gifted to Denis by Mike Taylor in 1989 – who is depicted on one of the cards, as are Peter Sainsbury, Malcolm Marshall, Gordon Greenidge, Tim Tremlett and Robin and Chris Smith amongst many others.
Also included in Denis’s gift was a copy of the Hampshire County Cricket Guide for 1899. The Guides were the forerunners of the Hampshire Handbook, also published by Hampshire County Cricket Club, and older editions are relatively rare!
June 2026 HCH Photo Quiz
Before the Hampshire v Surrey T20 game on Friday May 29th at the Utilita Bowl, when did these two players last take the field together?
Hampshire's Liam Dawson and Surrey's Sam Curran last played together in the World Cup T20 Semi-Final for England against India in Mumbai on March 5th 2026.
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Robin Smith and those Centuries against Australia
As a Hampshire supporter during the 20th Century, one of the most attractive fixtures of the season was always the visit of the Tourists. Whether that was Bradman’s Invincibles, Clive Lloyd’s all-conquering side of the seventies and eighties or Warne and his Australians, the memories of seeing Hampshire take on the best was a season’s highlight. Sometimes these games weren’t very even contests; at all times, they were very competitive cricket. Unless, as a child, you could be taken to London, it was your only chance to watch England’s Test opponents live. Indeed, it was always a great privilege (and showpiece event) for all the counties to play against the visiting international sides before, during and after the Tests series in an English summer. Runs or wickets in that game for honest county pros - or South Africans in Test exile - were always richly prized. Hampshire’s David Turner in 1972 and Barry Richards in 1975 both took on the Australians and played innings of true international class at Southampton. Trevor Jesty’s 164* against Kapil Dev’s Indians was the highest of his eight centuries in 1982, while Kevan James set a world record, with four wickets in four balls and a hundred in 1996 against the same opponents.
However, there is one player in the relatively modern era for whom the game against the Tourists provided extra special memories for all Hampshire supporters. Having to wait four long years from 1981 onwards to qualify to play as a non-overseas player in England meant Robin Smith made his much-awaited debut for the Club against Pakistan in 1982. Two years later and still unavailable in the County Championship, he made 132 and 97 against Sri Lanka at Northlands Road. Reflecting on his life tragically cut short at 63, it is, though, his two innings against Australia – which came eight years apart in 1993 and 2001 – that perfectly illustrate his true and enduring greatness as a player. They were two very fine “Test class” hundreds for Hampshire, played on different grounds, in very different circumstances and at very different stages in Robin’s career. One I would love to have seen live (but had to follow on the radio), while the other was truly special to witness on the ground.
Both centuries were made against very strong Australian attacks desperate to get him out. The first was at the height of his powers in 1993, when the ‘Judge’ smashed 191, including 106 in that pre-lunch session on Day Two. The previous time Australia had visited these shores, he had already made two brilliant Test centuries against them in 1989. Typically, England were very much in trouble on both occasions, with wickets falling in the opening over or two, before Robin strode confidently and purposefully out to the wicket. Robin’s second Hampshire hundred against Australia was at the Rose Ball in its first summer. It came on a testing wicket, long after England had unfairly and prematurely jettisoned him. By now he was captain and his 113 was key to Hampshire’s amazing and thrilling two-wicket victory. Poignantly, the world’s greatest ever leg-spinner was part of the attack he faced in that game.
Mention of Shane Warne unites, of course, both tours of 1993 and 2001. His “ball of the century” on his Ashes debut at Old Trafford to remove Mike Gatting was followed up, an over later, with another huge leg-spinner to remove Robin in that memorable game. Two Tests later, Robin made 86 and 50 at Trent Bridge against Warne, Merv Hughes, the Waugh brothers and Tim May. Before the series had started, Robin had warmed up for the Ashes at Edgbaston on May 21st, 1993, with 167* from just 205 balls in the second Texaco Trophy 55-over game in that three-match competition. Despite making 277 for 5 in the allotted 55 overs, it was not enough to beat Australia who won by 6 wickets. Robin’s innings, though, was to remain England’s highest ever individual score in one-day cricket for well over 20 years. He pillaged 70 himself from the last seven overs that day. Only Viv Richards, Kapil Dev and Glen Turner were above him, at the time, in the list of highest scores in one-day internationals. No England or Hampshire fan was surprised to see him take that Australian attack apart. Four years earlier, having not been selected for the First Test, he had enjoyed a fine first home Ashes series against Australia, scoring two Test centuries at Manchester and Nottingham, as well as 95 and 60 in the other two Tests.
Robin Smith and Shane Warne were to remain box office adversaries or teammates on the field and great friends off it. For the first ever Ashes Test at the Utilita Bowl in 2027, all of us will so keenly feel the poignancy of their absence. They undoubtedly defined the modern Hampshire cricket era on the field for those transition years either side of the turn of century. While lighting up the Test arena, they were also giving their absolute all to make Hampshire successful. Robin, of course, gave Hampshire unstinting and yeoman service for more than twenty years. Shane’s seasons with Hampshire were far fewer and his impact, as a result, understandably perhaps not so great. But both are, without question, true legends of Hampshire cricket.
Robin’s name is also etched in the memory of Hampshire supporters for ever for so many of his one-day exploits, with repeated Man of the Match performances in Benson and Hedges and Nat West quarter-finals, semi-finals, and finals from the mid 1980’s onwards. His eye-catching cameo against Derbyshire in Hampshire’s first-ever Lord’s success in 1988 propelled him into the Test arena. His 78 against Waqar and Surrey in the 1991 Final was matched a year later with 90 against Kent to make it a hat-trick of Hampshire Finals’ wins in just 4 years. Shane Warne’s only Hampshire final, sadly in contrast, saw a first defeat against Durham in 2007. Robin Smith was the best Hampshire player I can ever recall chasing runs in high pressure situations. There was a confidence and tempo to his batting that meant that the scoreboard was never an issue all the time Robin was in the middle anchoring the chase. He was so hard to tie down. His body language exuded command and belief. In absolutely one of the most uneven of contests, I bowled at him once in a club game in 1981 and regretted for twelve months trying to field a straight drive that still went for four by the sightscreen before long on moved!
The fact Robin’s final century against Australia for Hampshire in 2001 was also against the greatest spinner of all time, Shane Warne, meant so much to him and all his many fans. His ‘perceived inadequacies’ against spin at the highest level in the late nineties, must have been so hard for him to read about, particularly when his Test average against India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan simply tell a very different story. It is universally accepted that Robin was shown the door by England far too soon. He was clearly a player who needed to be understood, loved and valued for his attacking intent. This 21st century Robin Smith Hampshire hundred v Australia was one late, final reminder that he could still be the equal of the greatest in the ultimate contest.
Back, though, in late June 1993, when the Australians toured England, they met Hampshire at the long-established 106-year-old County Ground in Southampton. The tourists won the toss, but it was Hampshire’s first innings that would be defined by one commanding performance. As was so often the case with England again that summer, Robin Smith strode to the crease early and duly smashed his way to a magnificent 191. The “Judge’s” belligerent knock lifted Hampshire to 374 for 5 declared — a total that meant they had virtually matched the first innings total of that formidable Australian side. When Robin holed out eventually to Tim May, at long on, within reach of his highest first-class score of 209 at the time, he had smashed 32 fours and four sixes. In doing so, he became only the tenth Englishman to score a first-class hundred before lunch against the Australians. You had to go back very nearly thirty years for the previous occasion, when Bob Barber did likewise at Edgbaston in 1964. Interestingly, you had to go back to our very own Phil Mead’s hundred for England at the Oval in 1921 for the last occasion that a resumed innings was improved at such a rate against Australia in England. At the close of play on Day One of that game with England 129 for 4, Mead was 19*. He finished up with 189* in England’s 403-8 declared. Mead reached his 100 in 201 balls, making 102 in that second morning session.
Robin’s approach to batting could not have been more different than Phil Mead’s. His 191 stood out as a personal masterclass: a display of concentration, wonderful timing, and fearless aggressive batting. At the end of the first day, Hampshire were 73-2, in reply to Australia’s 393 for 7 declared. Robin went past 15,000 first-class runs when he got off the mark. He began Day Two on 32*. His century came up off just 113 balls, forty minutes before lunch. He scored most of the runs in a productive 233-run 2nd wicket partnership with Middleton (53). They batted together for 44 overs. At that time, Smith was, of course, regarded as one of England’s most elegant and bravest batsmen — especially skilled at handling pace bowling, with that trademark square-cut that brought him so many admirers. Contemporary newspaper reports had noted that this innings “vindicated his England selection” and showed that even when his England place was even being questioned by a few, he remained a real force to be reckoned with. The match ended in a draw, but Smith’s century felt like a continuation of his international form: he was at that time one of England’s most reliable run-scorers against high-quality opposition, and his performance against Australia’s touring attack reflected his status as a frontline Test batsman very much in his prime. In the next Test at Nottingham ten days later, Robin made 86 from 113 balls in the first innings and 50 from 71 balls in the second.
Fast forward to 28–30 July 2001, and it was not just the scenery that had changed. This match took place at the recently opened Rose Bowl — a sign of evolving county cricket infrastructure and a new era for Hampshire. By 2001, Smith was long retired from international cricket. His England career had ended in 1996. Nevertheless, for Hampshire, he was still very much a senior figure: in fact, he had, by then, been club captain for three seasons. In that 2001 game, Hampshire won the toss and chose to field. The Australians, remarkably, were skittled out in just 30.4 overs for 97. Alan Mullally returned figures of 11.4 overs, 3 maidens and 5 for 18. Back in 1985, Hampshire had bowled Australia out for 76 - with Kevan James starring again with 6-22 – but they still could not force a win that year. Hampshire’s only previous victory over Australia had been way back in 1912. This was thanks in the main to Mead’s 160 and Alec Kennedy’s 11 wickets, in a famous match which saw Hampshire triumph by 8 wickets.
In Hampshire’s reply on 28th July 2001, both Giles White and Will Kendall were out for 0. From 14-2, Robin scored a gritty and authoritative 113 from 277 balls, helping his side to 354, thus setting up a first-innings lead of 257. He added 112 for the 3rd wicket with Derek Kenway (70) and then 182 for the 4th wicket with Neil Johnson (88). The second of those partnerships lasted 51 overs and was the longest for any side batting against Australia all summer. The capacity crowd of 6,000 at the new ground witnessed Australia experiencing real discomfort for the first time on that tour. Having seen Robin make three one-day hundreds live against Lancashire, Staffordshire, and Sussex all away, I finally was there in person, cheering a long-awaited Smith RA first-class ton - made in a winning cause on a home ground in Hampshire. If you watch any team regularly over the decades, you treasure those truly special matches: favourite players excelling against the best; those ‘I was there’ days that can’t be beaten!
The Tourists, in their second innings, recovered strongly — in part thanks to 142 by former Hampshire man Matthew Hayden — and declared at 389 for 9, setting Hampshire a target of 133 in about 26 overs. What followed was tense and compelling: Hampshire lost wickets steadily in their chase, and by the end the situation was fraught — two wickets left, four runs required, just nine balls remaining. By the end of the game, Hampshire were trying to score on a very uneven surface that was turning square. Amid mounting drama, a boundary by young wicket-keeper Iain Brunnschweiler sealed a two-wicket win for Hampshire. An over earlier, Colin Miller had dropped a regulation catch off Brunnschweiler. For Robin Smith, this century was a contribution to a rare and special win — a testament that five years after his England days had ended, he remained a match-winner at county level.
While the ‘Judge’ on the field was always so confident, upbeat and bullish, the retired Robin Smith off the field lacked confidence and any contentment. It was always harrowing to read of his tortuous life after his Hampshire career was over. For us, as supporters, we just have the wonderful memories of a player Mark Nicholas describes as simply the greatest in Hampshire’s rich history. At the same time as acknowledging that Marshall, Richards, Greenidge and Warne all achieved more around the world in their careers as true greats of the game, Mark feels that nobody played for Hampshire with more distinction, courage, heart, skill and sheer effort – both week in and week out as well as on the big occasion - than Robin,
His two centuries in those Australia matches therefore bookend not just two Hampshire–Australia fixtures, but two distinct chapters of a remarkable cricketing life. That 2001 victory was sadly the last ever tourist game between Hampshire and Australia, because schedules and playing formats have changed. I just feel privileged to have been there for two of those three days to see that Hampshire win. With my younger son, who was seven at the time, we travelled down from Cheshire to have his Chase bat signed by Warne and Smith. It remains a prize possession, along with the treasured memories of watching Robin cut, pull and on drive on his way to three figures. A final almost valedictory century, 25 years ago this summer, made against the late, great Warne, Brett Lee, Jason Gillespie and co, all proudly wearing their baggy caps at our new home. The ground has improved so much in the intervening quarter of a century, with the Robin Smith Suite the perfect place to look out on the cricket and the stage which he graced for a couple of seasons with such distinction. Safe to say, Robin Arnold Smith will be so sorely missed and so fondly remembered for so many years to come. How England could do with someone as good as him again, coming in at the fall of the first wicket in the Utilita Bowl Ashes Test in 2027!
John Winter
This article appears in the 2026 Hampshire Handbook
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Hampshire’s opening game on Friday May 22nd at Taunton was a re-run of the 2025 Final, yet this was despite the fact Somerset are now playing in a different group. The format for the 2026 Blast includes a number of changes. Firstly, all matches are being played in one block before the start of The Hundred. The group stage has been reduced by two games to 12 matches per side, with the quarter-finals and Finals Day following on directly in July. The two former north and south groups (of nine sides) have been replaced by three groups of six - split into north, central and south sections as they were in 2020. The top two teams in each group plus the best two third-placed teams progress to the quarter-finals. Each county plays the other teams in their group home and away – a total of 10 matches – with an additional home game against a county from outside their group and one away game against a side from another group. These are those three groups:
North Group: Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Lancashire, Durham, Yorkshire and Leicestershire
Central Group: Gloucestershire, Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, Somerset, Glamorgan, Worcestershire
South Group: Surrey, Sussex, Kent, Middlesex, Essex, Hampshire
Hence the reason for playing Somerset away in that opening game. No side has ever retained the T20 cup in England, but Somerset definitely started as pre-tournament favourites. Apart from James Vince, who made 58 on his return to England from Dubai, Hampshire struggled and were bowled out for 158 in 19.4 overs. Smeed and Banton made short work of that total, racing to 90 in the eighth over. Defeat by seven wickets, with nearly fours to spare, soon ensued.
Game two was against Essex in the sweltering heat on Sky at the Utilita Bowl four days later. Tristan Stubbs hammered a formidable 69, less than 24 hours after jetting in from the IPL to hand Hampshire Hawks their first Vitality Blast men’s competition win of the summer. South African Stubbs hit five sixes in his 42-ball 69; he was assisted by Joe Weatherley and fellow overseas Hilton Cartwright in vital 64 and 84 run partnerships. The 201 set to win was always above par and Scott Currie’s personal best four for 18 made sure that last year’s runners-up Hampshire made it five home T20 wins over Essex in a row.
Three days later Hampshire played Surrey straight after the tied women’s game. It was a special day in the life of Hampshire Cricket for two reasons. Firstly, to mark 25 years of the Utilita Bowl there were a number of celebrations all day for the double header, including a fitting tribute for Rod Bransgrove who was retiring after guiding the club through virtually all of those 25 years as the visionary, tenacious, widely-admired and highly-respected leader. Many former players including Trevor Jesty, Shaun Udal, John Crawley, Mark Nicholas, Nick Pothas and Chris Tremlett were all part of the guard honour with the players of both teams to welcome Rod on to the field at the start of the men’s game. He received a very warm welcome from more than 8000 spectators who were in the ground. The second reason the match was special was because the crowd were treated to an absolutely outstanding Liam Dawson innings of 76 not out - which saw Hampshire home against a star-studded Surrey international line-up. This was the first Utilita Bowl win for the Hawks against the Brown Caps since 2015. Dawson, having just retired from red-ball cricket earlier in the month, constructed a thrilling 76 off 44 balls – his seventh T20 fifty and first since a 59 against Sussex Sharks in 2023. He masterminded the Hawks chase of 175, by putting together stands of 51 with Tom Prest and 83 with Tristan Stubbs. Hampshire completed their second victory in the group with five balls to spare.
Earlier in the Surrey innings, Roy gave Surrey a flier, having chosen to bat first, when he and Will Jacks combined to take Chris Wood for 21 runs in the third over. However, three wickets in four overs started to turn the tide towards the Hawks. Scott Currie had Jacks caught in the deep, Wood got his own back on Roy, and 17-year-old Manny Lumsden nicked Ollie Pope off for his first T20 wicket. Surrey then struggled to capitalise on the promise of partnerships in the middle order when Dan Lawrence and Laurie Evans found the magnetic hands of Hilton Cartwright off James Fuller. The one constant through the majority of the innings was Sam Curran, smartly rotating the strike and accumulating for his team. Hampshire, though, then applied the squeeze in the death overs, with just 12 runs coming after the 16th over, as well as three more wickets – including another miraculous Cartwright catch. Jordan Clark took 30 runs off the 20th over to take his side to a par score of 174. Lumsden on debut certainly impressed with 2 for 29.
In reply, the Hawks ended the powerplay ahead of the rate on 62 for three, before Dawson came in at number five to seize all the initiative for the home side. He scored runs all around the wicket; his brutality thumped five leg side sixes on a pitch where fluency had been tricky all day. The last of those maximums took the Hawks to the winning line, with five balls to spare, and ended Surrey’s winning start to the campaign. Here is Liam below, coming off 76 not out, to be greeted by captain James Vince.
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June
1st June 1966 - The start of the month 70 years ago saw Henry Horton pass the milestone of 20,000 runs for Hampshire. The former Southampton footballer reached the landmark in a game against Gloucestershire at Southampton.
3rd June 2006 - Hampshire wrapped up a 5-wicket win over Yorkshire at Headingley. Leading the way with 168 not out, Jimmy Adams was the backbone of Hampshire’s fourth innings chase of 404-5. It matched the 404 made by Bradman’s Australians at Headingley against England in 1948, but Shane Warne's Hampshire side were the first county ever to make more than 400 in the last innings of a match against Yorkshire to win a championship fixture.
6th June 1966 - Hampshire’s Championship game against Notts at Trent Bridge ended with the scorers exactly level. Set 288 to win in just 170 minutes and requiring thirteen still from the final over, Hampshire finished on 237-5.
12th June 1901 - In the second innings at Aigburth against Lancashire, Johnnie Greig carried his bat, making 249* out of 457. His innings included 32 fours and 1 five. Grieg added 113 for the 10th wicket with Charles Robson which was a Hampshire record for that wicket which stood for 10 years.
20th June 1966 - “Butch” White finished up with 9-44 in the first innings of the Leicestershire game at Portsmouth. Having taken 3 wickets on the first day of the game, he secured career-best figures - with a spell of 6 for 15 after lunch.
29th June 1996 - All who were present to watch the Hampshire v India Tourists Game at Northlands Road for the three-day game, starting on, will never forget the World Record set by Kevan James. In India’s innings he took 4 wickets in 4 balls and then made 103, batting at four in Hampshire's reply the next day. For the record, his victims were Rathore, Tendulkar, Dravid and Manjrekar.
Back l-r) Rupert Cox, Bobby Parks, Martin Harrison*, Ian Watson, Martin Wigger*, Mike Hill, Kevin Emery, Martin Jean-Jacques, Norman Cowans, Adi Aymes, Tim Tremlett, John Barnard*
(Seated l-r) Nigel Cowley, Bob Herman, Mike Taylor, Bob Stephenson, Peter Haslop, Keith Wheatley, Richard Lewis, Raj Maru
*2nd XI: Martin, son of Leo, John son of Mike
Kevin contacted us again in May 2026 to donate his cricket boots from 1982/3 to the Hampshire Cricket Heritage Archive Room Collection - with this wonderful explanation of what they mean to him. Kevin was nicknamed "Billy’s Boots" at Hampshire CCC, following his first ever game for the 2nd XI v Sussex at Horsham in 1981. Kevin wrote:
Billy’s Boots
I arrived to play my first ever game for Hampshire in the 2nd X1 Championship against Sussex at Horsham, in the Summer of 1981, having just completed my Final Exams at Bristol University.
At the time - my bowling boots were an old pair of Winnit’s - which had some tape over the toe to cover up some worn out stitching and a small hole, as I used to drag my trailing foot through the crease, at delivery. They were still fit for purpose - just - and as I got into my spell, little pieces started to fray off and as I began to take wickets, Richard Hayward and Mike Bailey exclaimed-
“ Hey, he’s got Billy’s Boots on !” (as written about in the Comic Book - The Scorcher/ Roy of the Rovers - about a boy who discovered some old worn-out boots that gave him magical powers and enabled him play much better and score great goals).
The nickname quickly gained traction amongst my new teammates as I went on to take 6-36 from 27 overs (I think?) on debut, and so it stuck for the rest of my time at Hampshire. From that day to this, people from that era (and later) still greet me as Billy, Bill or the full title of Billy’s Boots.
Needless to say, I had to replace the old Winnit’s by the end of the season and I had a new pair hand made for me in Sydney, whilst I was out there playing for Sydney University in the Winter 1981/82 - which are these boots I wore in 1982/83.
May 2026 HCH Photo Quiz
Name the Year
2000
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Assuming Liam plays v Essex in April it will be the start of his 20th continuous season in Hampshire's first team - the only man to do so with the current formats including T20 and Hundred. As far as I can figure, he's the eleventh to make that figure overall, albeit with the caveat that some 'continuous' players were broken by one of the two World Wars and for Jack Newman* that meant also 1919 because he wasn't demobbed in time. In addition the amateur AJL Hill missed two seasons, so was not continuous. Newman, Hill and Sainsbury are the three Hampshire born. The eleven are:
28: CP Mead (WW1) 1905-1936
26: AS Kennedy (WW1) 1907-1936
24: DR Turner 1966-1989
23: PJ Sainsbury 1954-1976 (plus coach)
22: G Brown 1908-1933
22: D Shackleton 1948-1969
22: RA Smith (1982-2003)
20: J Newman (1906-1930)*
21: AJL Hill 1895-1921 BUT not 1896 or 1914 so not continuous
20: RE Marshall 1953-1972
20: LA Dawson 1907-
Incidentally Liam also played for Essex during those 20 years.
Th website is utilitabowl.com and the series is called From the Archive
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Marking twenty-five years since the opening of the Rose Bowl and the first game played on the new ground in May 2001, the Club have issued a special edition of the Hampshire Handbook. HCH have helped again with a number of articles in this year's edition.
During the final Championship game of the season against Surrey, Kyle Abbott took his season's tally of wickets to 56. His name is quite rightly bracketed with Andy Roberts, Derek Shackleton and Malcolm Marshall whenever Post 1945 all-time best Hampshire elevens are ever discussed. He signed an extension to ensure he comes back in 2026. To date in 116 first class matches for the club, Kyle has taken 478 wickets at exactly 20 apiece. This season, he has led the Hampshire attack yet again with outstanding skill and real heart. He is extremely fit and a great role model to a battery of young quicks at the club who show great promise. They are privileged to play with him. Without him, Hampshire would have been relegated before that fateful month of September for the club had even begun. He deserved all the plaudits and awards which rightly came his way immediately after the season ended. The First Division in the County Championship is a much better league next season with him in it.
In order to capture some of what makes him an undisputed modern Hampshire "great" on the page, Kevin Emery sat down to do an interview with us at the Hotel End, directly behind the bowler's arm, while Kyle was bowling in the second innings of that Surrey game. Just for the record, Kyle finished with yet another 5 wicket wicket haul, even as we chatted. Here is that interview with Kevin, who took 79 County Championship wickets himself in his debut season of 1982 (at less than 24 apiece) when he was named "Young Cricketer of the Year":
Kevin, what impresses you most watching Kyle bowl?
Watching him live here and on TV, the first thing to say is that he is very consistent - very consistent in his lengths and in his lines. So he's not giving the batsmen any freebies. After that, he is then going to work on keeping them in the crease and developing a plan of attack. One of his real virtues is that he can find that length that differs between grounds around the country; you know, that is just key. He reads the wicket very early on and then invariably finds that right length each time. He is also extremely fit. If you talk in terms of longevity, Jimmy Anderson's the best, but being able to repeat, come back and bowl again, for spell after spell, and just physically being in great shape to last the course defines them both. Kyle also bowls regularly with a new ball, that gives him some advantage, when it is a bit harder and it nips around more. Kyle nips it either way from sort of middle crease and he just always keeps the batsmen honest. I think he also just surprises them now and again with very subtle changes of pace.
How would you describe his action?
Firstly, the wrist is always behind the ball. He is not chest on, but slightly open. He's not classical sideways, but comes in on a fairly straight approach. Crucially, the wrist is always strong and he can then just adjust the ball very slightly to nip it either side. He really knows what he is doing; he bowls really well to left handers. His attack to left handers is often round the wicket. It is like a fast off break. If you can come in with the angle and hold it up, then that's going to get some of the better left handers out. When he comes in - both over and round the wicket - he also has the ability to vary his angle slightly on the crease. His natural angle is coming in and he's got the ball that holds up and nips away. He also gets very decent carry.
What other advantages does he have at the start of his run up?
He dots people up a lot and builds pressure. As a bowler, you are not preying on the batsman's ego, but the level of comfort say. He is constantly asking questions of them. So I notice today that Dan Lawrence has walked down the track to him a few times to say, okay, that's means you've got to bowl a bit shorter, which gives it less chance to do something. And every time Dan does walk down, he just lets it go. He doesn't want to whack him, but he's just trying to put the bowler off his length. So how does Kyle respond? He just says to himself on the way back to his mark, I know what I am good at, that is fine, I'm still on the crease, I'm watching the batsman and I can just adjust, if need be. He is totally confident that lbw, bowled and nicked off are always all in play because he is so consistent. He's not getting people out slapped to cover. Just hit that line, nip it a bit either way, hope the bounce will be a factor. He is not a big swinger of the ball, which requires you to change your grip far more on the ball. It is all about pitch groupings and building the pressure. Nothing on the pads to open up the leg side scoring options. Maidens always matter.
Which bowlers were similar to Kyle back when you played?
Although Kyle is a couple of yards quicker, someone like Angus Fraser, you know, where he's wearing away that little patch on the length to either left or right handers. They both send down that "heavy ball" that hits the bat. Change of pace with Kyle as well can be key, but so often these are just very subtle changes. Let's just say he is normally bowling mid to late 80s, and then he bowls one at 73, because you put the ball in your hand a bit deeper, you splay your fingers or something. That's where on slow, low wickets, you can get the batsman out caught when they are through the shot too early. As we know, there's loads of different types of dismissal and on flatter wickets without movement, that is where the best bowlers like Kyle come into their own.
It feels like Kyle needs overs in his legs and is always just as effective in his third or fourth spell of the day? How important is it to bowl lots of overs as a paceman or seamer?
He would have bowled in South Africa growing up with lots of overs coming through. Once you have physically developed and past the risks of stress fractures and stuff like that, you need to bowl overs and overs. You get to know what your body needs, you know when you're in rhythm, when you're not, and how you can fight through it. And so from his perspective, I guess he'll know the days that he's right on it and the days that he is battling. But to the untrained eye it just looks the same. For some of the younger bowlers today, it is far harder. They don't get the amount of overs, and you not going to learn how to do that. You will not be taking the volume of wickets, or like he's consistently done at 20 apiece. He just continually hits that awkward length for batsmen, generates good bounce and carry. We all know that there are no two balls exactly the same. He doesn't waste the short ball. He knows what works for him: don't try to do too many things. Just hit the crease, cant the seam slightly differently, maybe put it in your hand slightly differently, but keep that right length for that wicket.
How crucial are bowling partnerships?
Huge, of course. With Mo Abbas and Kyle, they complemented each other perfectly. Abbas would bowl that ball that kissed the pitch, a bit further up, nipping it a little bit either way, challenging the ego of the batsman more. Meanwhile Abbott, from the other end, was hitting the bat hard. So both were really different. But both are also thinking bowlers. Thinking the batsman out and working to a plan, And so with the new ball, I would have thought those two together - on wickets that helped a bit - then there was no bigger handful that you could face in modern day County Cricket. Hampshire were very lucky to have them both. Mo has definitely played his part in Nottinghamshire's title triumph this summer.
What will his legacy be?
The crucial thing from a supporter's perspective is that you want your overseas players to be here for the whole summer, not to pop in and out. You want them to be part of the makeup of the dressing room over a number of years. You want to see them doing it day in and day out, giving their all. With Kyle, every time I see him, it always comes across to me that it really means something for him to play for Hampshire. He has been a tremendous signing from day one. A consistently top performer, a great club man and a joy to watch for all Hampshire supporters. His place in the rich history of this club is assured.
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Hampshire's first win of the 2026 season by 214 runs at Headingley
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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.
Hampshire Cricket Heritage's Own Recent Booklets
All Priced £5 in the Club Shop or £8.50 by post
(email request to Glen Williams at HCH using the email address: hantscccheritage@gmail.com)
Simply the Best? Kyle Abbott 17-86 (2020) Dave Allen - available in the Club Shop
2. Hampshire County Cricketers update 2019-2021 (2022) Dave Allen - available in the Club Shop
3. Derek Shackleton; the Ageas Bowl Display (2023) Dave Allen - available in the Club Shop
4. Champions: Hampshire's County Championship 1973 (2023)Dave Allen - available in the Club Shop
5. Ordained Hampshire Cricketers (2024) Stephen Saunders - available in the Club Shop
6. A Glorious Week - Hampshire in Portsmouth August 1974 (2024) John Winter - available in the Club Shop
7. 2014: Going Up! Hampshire's Division Two Promotion Season (2024) Dave Allen - available in the Club Shop
8. Hampshire's Naval Cricketers (2025) Stephen Saunders - available in the Club Shop
9. Arlott, Rice and Richards - 50 Years since JPL success in 1975 - available in the Club Shop
10. A Professional Pair: Alec Kennedy, Jack Newman and the Hampshire Revival - available in the Club Shop in April
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In his latest book, Hampshire Cricket Heritage's Dave Allen celebrates all forms of cricket played in the first year that his beloved Portsmouth enjoyed city status - exactly 100 years ago.
HCH Supporters £12
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Could anyone help us complete our
John Arlott Monographs Collection?
Our Archive Room Curator, Glen Williams, has completely re-organised and re-catalogued our growing HCH Book Collection over the past two years. He is also conducting research on all that John Arlott ever wrote about cricket (and beyond), in order to compile a detailed bibliography over the next couple of years on JA for HCH. This is Glen's update on our John Arlott Book Collection,
"As of August 2025, thanks to supporter donations, HCH purchases and some generous in house HCH donations (you know who you are!) we now have over 60 John Arlott books and 6 limited edition monographs on Hampshire cricketers.
The current list of our monographs is:
Neville Rogers 1956
Derek Shackleton 1958
Leo Harrison 1958
Vic Cannings 1958 (published 1959)
Ingleby-Mackenzie 1962
Peter Sainsbury 1965
With the proceeds from the July Book Sale, we have now been able purchase this month the three below:
Jimmy Gray 1960
Arthur Holt 1963
Henry Horton 1964
Our Chair, Richard Griffiths, recently donated to HCH his own copy of "Derek Shackleton - An Appreciation" by John Arlott. It is signed by both the player and author. This is clearly a series we are very keen to complete for our Archive Room collection because only 50 of each were issued. This fine book (pictures above) was published in 1958 by the Boscombe Printing company in its original slightly faded green sand grained cloth cover with the title in gilt letters. The money raised from the sales in 1958 went to Derek Shackleton's Benefit Fund. The contents of John's piece were reproduced in the 1958 Hampshire Handbook.
Therefore, we now have 9 of the Hampshire monographs and, to complete the collection for Hampshire Cricket Heritage, we are asking if anyone could help us fill in the remaining gaps from their own libraries/collections.
As of September 2025, we still need to acquire the following:
Desmond Eagar: A Memoir On His Retirement From First Class Cricket 1958
Roy Marshall: A Biographical Note 1961
Mervyn Burden: A Memoir 1964
David White 1969
We would particularly appreciate donations of these fine books so much to complete this special part of our John Arlott Collection. Alternatively, if any of our supporters would like to make cash donations to fund the purchase of these four remaining monographs, please contact us via email at hantscccheritage@gmail.com "
Glen Williams HCH
01 Hampshire County Champions 1961.m4aThis is a treat for everyone from the HCH Collection. It is a recording in 1961 by John Arlott, which we can make available to you for the first time, thanks to the work of Ray Stubbington and Dave Allen in the Archive Room. Click on it to listen to John's special and unique voice commentating on Hampshire at Bournemouth for our first Championship title.
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Richard in conversation with John Winter in September 2025 (with additional notes in italics)
Richard, we are here to talk about your favourite season playing for and captaining Hampshire - and there must be quite a few to choose from. If I can start by asking you, how did you begin playing for Hampshire?
RG - Yes, so I was at Oxford University and had played a few games on the Surrey Ground staff in 1964. I've got to say that I don't think it was my particular dream to play cricket professionally at that stage. If anything, tennis was my favourite game at school and as a student. I was lucky enough to captain Oxford University at both football and cricket and got blues for both, but tennis was always my preferred option, really. So I think the Hampshire cricket connection came about through Desmond Eagar who knew my uncle Ivor. I was playing for Oxford University at Iffley Road and in the Parks where he saw me play. He then got in touch and invited me to come down to Southampton to play a few trial games for the 2nd eleven in 1965 and 1966.
Richard won his four cricket blues at Oxford between 1963 and 1967. He played twice against Hampshire, making 49 in 1965 and 62 in 1966 before playing for the Club. During his time at Oxford, Richard made his Hampshire 2nd XI debut at Basingstoke on 19th August 1965. He made 23* in his only innings against Kent. Having been picked for the MCC President's XI to play the West Indies at Lord's in July 1966, Richard made his Hampshire first-class debut on a very special sporting day in England. Saturday 30th July 1966 was the day England beat Germany 4-2 at Wembley in the World Cup Final and, while "some people were on the pitch at Wembley", Richard was in the field for Hampshire at Northlands Road against Derbyshire. In a drawn game, he made 8 and took 2 catches on his first-class debut. He then played both games in Portsmouth Cricket week against Yorkshire and Lancashire. In fact, he played every Championship game until the end of that 1966 summer. For the last two, he was joined by David Turner, who made his first-class debut in the penultimate game against Kent at Bournemouth. David was immediately followed by Trevor Jesty who made his first team debut at Portsmouth in the very next game - the last of the Championship season against Essex. Richard's only 2nd XI game in 1966 was at Laverstoke Park, where he was run out for 22 against Somerset. This was because Mike Barnard and Colin Ingleby-Mackenzie had stepped back in to play in Hampshire's first ever Gillette Cup Semi-Final at Worcester on August 10th.
What was the next summer like in 1967?
RG - Well in 1967 I was finishing at Oxford and only available for Hampshire in the second half of the season. It was the year we won the 2nd XI Competition under Leo Harrison's captaincy. I don't think I played a single game for the 2nd XI that summer, where Keith Wheatley and Richard Lewis were among the leading run-scorers. I batted at three in the first team instead and found it hard to make runs. I think I must have replaced Henry Horton at three who had been such a wonderful servant of the club. I do remember batting for a very long time to make my first hundred against Kent at Southampton. Underwood was just so hard to get away, and he mopped up the tail. It was the first time I remember batting with David (Turner) who made his first fifty for the club in the same innings. We were in trouble when we came together and the scoring was very slow.
The record books show that Richard made 122 against Kent in only his second game back after University on July 16th 1967. It took him 6 hours and 10 minutes. He hit 2 sixes and eight fours, sharing a fifth wicket partnership of 112 with David Turner who made his maiden half-century with 52. In total, Richard played in 13 first-class matches in the second half of the 1967 summer, finishing third in the averages, with 546 runs at exactly 26.0. Having finished 11th in 1966, Hampshire dropped one place in 1967 to 12th in the County Championship table.
In 1968, there was the arrival of the overseas players and Barry Richards joining Hampshire. How much do you remember about the summer?
RG - Well, let's talk first of all about how he signed for Hampshire. It was very last minute, I think it was 99% certain that Clive Lloyd was joining us, when he opted for Lancashire instead. It left us, virtually at the last minute, without an overseas player. The deal that we had offered Clive was never going to be enough, because his club side in Lancashire contacted Lancashire and said that they would double anything that we were prepared to pay. They just did not want to lose him. He was a talisman for the Lancashire leagues and somebody Lancashire particularly wanted. So yeah, it was a very much a last minute thing. I had spent some time in South Africa with Martin Harrison, son of Leo. Martin had spent a lot of time in South Africa, and he knew Barry and recommended him very highly. In fact, I'd actually played against Barry when he came over in 1963. He captained a South African Nuffield Schools side against Charterhouse. He scored a fantastic hundred and I remember former South African opening batsman, Jackie McGlew, was coaching that side. He told us that day that Barry was the best young player he'd ever seen. I didn't doubt that at all. Everything we saw that day, just bore that out. In all my time, when I went on to play the game professionally, I never saw a better player.
So what was it that marked Barry out from anybody else, and what elevates him quite rightly into the all time greats?
RG - He saw the ball really early. He could play every shot. I mean, I've been watching Shubman Gill this summer and some of the current Indians play beautiful cover drives, but nobody ever played the cover drive more gracefully, more effortlessly, or with better placement than Barry. Any form of spin, left arm over, right arm swing and seam, pace, the short ball, he could play everything. He only had one weakness and that was boredom! He loved the battle. He loved playing against the best; it brought the best out of him. The more difficult the conditions, the better he played; the more the challenge, the greater the number of runs that he made. I think Gordon also spurred him on after 1971. Gordon was great for him. It was a tremendous partnership. It encouraged Barry to go to even greater heights. There would be times when Barry would come back and say, "God, I wish I could hit the ball as hard as Gordon does." But Barry was all timing. Gordon was all muscle and, as an opening pair, they were absolutely ferocious. They were so good to captain: they were both really keen students of the game and they did give advice, but overall, what they did to set the tone was just amazing. Both were truly special players. Sorry, I digress, but no time talking about how good those two were is ever wasted!
What about your own season in 1968?
RG - It was a much harder season for me. I know that I didn't make a hundred in that third season. Barry just ended it up making it look so much easier than everyone else, including Roy Marshall who was, himself, a very destructive batsman.
Injuries ravaged the side in 1969 and you had to retire hurt at Ilford in mid-June after you were struck on the head by Keith Boyce?
RG - I got hit on the head and retired hurt. Thankfully, I was able to join Peter (Sainsbury) back at the wicket the next day and things just went my way. It was the start of a great run of form for me actually.
Richard's modesty prohibits him from elaborating on that knock of 109 at Ilford which was the fastest Championship hundred of the season that year. It was the first of Richard's six centuries that summer; his second came in the next game at home to Glamorgan (112) at Bournemouth.
Is it true that before 1969, you never really felt as if you were going to make it as a professional for Hampshire?
That is absolutely right. I was just lucky enough to score 6 centuries that season, but it was the game against Warwickshire at home when I got 223 not out that really sticks in the memory. It was the only double century that I scored for Hampshire. And my other memory from that summer, and this game in particular, was about the bonus points. Bonus points were awarded for each 25 runs after 150 in the first 85 overs; we managed to get maximum bonus points that day.
Did it help having the John Player League for the first time that summer in 1969?
RG - Maybe that freed me up a bit. I remember making a hundred against Glamorgan on the Saturday at Bournemouth and then making a fifty on the Sunday at Southampton in "Butch" White's Benefit game. We finished second to Lancashire in that first season of the JPL, but became a far better Sunday side in 1975. Just going back to that double hundred, I remember partnerships both with Roy Marshall and Danny Livingstone. Roy made the game look so easy. I was batting three and he was four. He was ridiculously talented, unpredictable. He could hit the ball to all parts; you weren't quite sure what you were going to get. I remember batting sometimes at number three when he was opening, and you'd be on the edge of your seat, because the first ball could fly down to third man as easily as be hit straight back over the bowler's head. But make no mistake, Roy was a fantastic player.
Richard, what are your memories of the attack that you faced that day?
RG - I do remember that there were some good bowlers in that Warwickshire line-up. Ibadulla was playing and he came on after Blenkiron and McVicker. But it was Tom Cartwright who was the pick. He bowled such great lines, wicket to wicket. He also moved it around enough both ways. He was always difficult to face, but I managed to work him a few times to leg. He went for a few runs that day and I remember him just saying, "you know, why do I have to bowl to this chap?" I don't think he was particularly impressed with the way that I scored my runs, but it was a day when everything went right. And actually, my other memory of that day, of course, is that, as I was walking back to the pavilion at tea, I was capped. It was a Monday at the end of June. There wasn't a big crowd, but it was such a special moment for me. I felt that I'd really finally arrived in the side by then. Barry Richards would have been one of the stars, of course, but he didn't play in the game where I got 223 because he'd been knocked unconscious by Mike Proctor about a week or two early. So he was unavailable. Unlike me, he could hit the ball to all parts of the ground. Obviously, he was just a genius, the best player I ever played with, simply the best player I have ever seen play the game. As I said before, he just had everything. All these years later, the memories remain so vivid. I can't remember many of my own innings thankfully. Barry was such a wonderful timer of a cricket ball and just a joy to watch from the other end when you batted with him. He actually missed a few games that second season through injury, but still made nearly 1500 runs in the Championship. I think he made 5 hundreds that summer.
You were also vice-captain in 1969. How did it come about that you ended up that season taking on the captaincy at Hampshire?
RG - Yes, so it was the end of the 1969 season that Roy was injured. I'd struggled a little bit with injuries myself, but then towards the end of the season, I was given the chance to captain the side in the absence of Roy. It was for the last two Championship games that season and for the last two Sundays in the JPL. Roy was a wonderful player, but maybe not the most adventurous or attacking captain. We had a very good bowling attack that summer with Bob Cottam and "Butch" White, Alan Castell, Peter Sainsbury and Trevor Jesty. Bob and "Butch" took 200 Championship wickets between them opening the bowling. Later, as the full-time captain, I wanted to change the tone a little bit. I had great support from Desmond (Eagar) behind the scenes. I just wanted us to play a more attacking form of cricket. Roy immediately returned a captain in 1970 when he was fit again. In those two games as captain in 1969, I dropped down the order to four - with David (Turner) slotting in at three, where he was so well suited. We also said a final good-bye to "Shack" at the end of that special summer of 1969.
In terms of your mantras later as a full-time captain, what were the big things that you always believed in?
RG - I was very much in favour of attacking cricket with the bat: I always wanted us to score our runs quickly, put pressure on the opposition, have a positive mindset because bonus points were so important. In the field, it was all about having a fast over rate, moving quickly between overs, because you wanted to give yourself the best chance to take 20 wickets in the game. Obviously catches win matches, so the fielding was the thing, probably, during my time as captain, that consistently stood out and put us right towards the top always. The opening partnership was totally fearless and put us on the front foot when we were were batting. But the fielding with David Turner in the covers, the brilliant slip cordon and Bob (Stephenson) behind the stumps made us a top side and stand out. We were also a happy side, a very positive dressing room. It was an easy team to captain in many ways because I think we all wanted to play the game the same way. 'Keep the game moving forwards and give ourselves every chance to win'.
Finally, as captain, what do you think was the secret of Hampshire's success in the seventies?
We were lucky that we had no England test stars. There was continuity of selection, a lot of experience - mixed with a lot of ambition and desire. But you do make your own luck in the game. We didn't prepare any wickets, particularly. We had such such a good balance to the side - with three genuine all-rounders. The bowlers were very skilful against many of the world's best batsmen playing in county cricket back then. There was a real depth to the squad as well. We enjoyed going to play on any ground. We also enjoyed tremendous home support. Each of the Hampshire grounds we went to - especially for Bournemouth Cricket Week and Portsmouth Cricket Week - meant we were tremendously well supported. Hampshire crowds are always very partisan, very knowledgable, but overall incredibly supportive of the team. Looking back now, it was such a privilege for me to captain Hampshire, with so many great professionals in that era.
We have virtually the complete collection of Hampshire Handbooks, going back to the first one issued as the Hampshire Cricketer's Guide in 1885. They are all housed in our Archive Room in the Shane Warne Suite at the Utilita Bowl Ground. Kent issued their first one in 1878, before Surrey followed suit in 1882. Hampshire were the third county in England to produce an annual yearbook. In a new series on this website in November 2025, HCH researcher and writer, Stephen Saunders, provides far more information on the earliest editions. We also have spares of most of the more recent handbooks. For any collectors who wish to add to their collection, please contact us at hantscccheritage@gmail.com
THE HAMPSHIRE CRICKETERS’ GUIDE
Introduction
Nearly every County Cricket Club currently issues an annual publication covering the previous and current year with a variety of titles. For Hampshire, it is currently called the Hampshire Handbook. The first county to issue such a publication was Kent in 1878 with the Kent County Cricket Club (commonly called the Blue Book). The second being Surrey in 1882 with the Surrey County Cricket Club.
The third county was Hampshire issuing The Hampshire Cricketer’s Guide in 1885.
1885
This first edition was published by Geo. Buxey, “Observer Office”, 21, Bridge Street, Southampton.
It was approximately 4 x 5 inches with a dark brown cloth cover and cost six pence.
The Guide is edited and compiled by George Bagshaw, Hon. Sec. The Ordnance Survey Cricket
Club. The purpose of the Guide was to document the history and memories associated with cricket played in and for Hampshire.
The Guide is “Respectfully Dedicated to W. W. B. Beach, Esq., M.P.,
President of the Hampshire County Cricket Club from 1868 to 1884, By Permission.”
The Hon. Sec. J. Fellowes, Major, R.E. opens his Preface:
“Following the example of other Counties, I am issuing “THE
HAMPSHIRE CRICKETER’S GUIDE” in the hope that it may be of some use in making Cricket more popular in the County, and thus,
perhaps, bringing the County to its old position”
The latter comment refers to the fact that Hampshire lost their first-class status, which was not reinstated till 1895. They also relocated
from the Antelope Ground to the new County Ground.
The President was The Earl of Northesk with eleven Vice-Presidents.
The area committees were listed followed by the Match Committee, Captain – Mr A. H. Wood, Hon. Treasurer – Mr R. Bencraft and
Hon. Secretary – Major J. Fellowes R.E.
There follows a one-page summary HAMPSHIRE – 1885 and the Results of Matches (played 8, won 2, lost 6) and the Batting and
Bowling averages for 1884. Two performances stand out. F.E. Lacey scored 211 against Kent, the highest score in County Matches. He went on to
score 92 not out in the second innings and had an average for the year of 75.4.
The other was a team total of 645 against Somersetshire, the second highest on record.
The fixtures for 1885 are listed followed by the scorecards for each match in 1884. The last being Gentlemen of Philadelphia v. Gentleman
of Hampshire (won by the Gentlemen of Hampshire). There is a List of Clubs situate within the County showing their
Officers and details. Of note: Portsmouth (Borough) Captain, Dr. A.C. Doyle.
Notable Batting and Bowling Performances of Hampshire Cricketers. (H.N. Dumbleton scores 325 for Royal Engineers against Royal
Marines). Then a page on 1st Battalion Hampshire Regiment Season. 1884 (played 9 won 4, lost 2 drawn 3).
The Cricket Diary 1885 follows taking up many pages. Then The Laws of Cricket, Laws of County Cricket. There are four of these latter laws
established in June 1873 at a meeting in the Surrey County Pavilion.
Cricket Diary for 1885 for completion. Lastly a few pages for Memoranda and Addresses.
At the back of the Guide are 34 pages of advertisements.
1886
Second year. Dark brown cloth cover and price of sixpence, but this year printed by the Southampton Times Steam Printing Works,
Note: The apostrophe has moved from Cricketer’s to Cricketers’. A brief table of Contents is also included.
The Preface by Lt.-Col. Fellowes opens “At the request of a large number of Secretaries of Cricket Clubs, and others, I am again
issuing the HAMPSHIRE CRICKETERS’ GUIDE”. He thanks Mr. J. Burgess Brown (the Editor of the Kentish Cricketers’ Guide)
“for his kindness in allowing me to take his Guide as my model”.
The President was The Earl of Northesk with thirteen Vice-Presidents.
The area committees were listed followed by the Match Committee,
Captain – Mr A. H. Wood, Hon. Treasurer – Dr. R. Bencraft and Hon. Secretary – Lieut.-Col. J. Fellowes R.E.
A two-and-a-half-page summary again headed HAMPSHIRE-1885.
“It cannot be denied that the first step for the real resuscitation of County Cricket has been taken in the acquisition of a permanent
headquarters at Southampton.”. It goes on to say that the site was nine acres with a handsome pavilion and replete with all the necessary
accommodation for members and cricketers. “On the occasion of the opening of the Ground, on May 8th and 9th, a Grand Bazaar was held,
opened by the Countess of Northesk” and the substantial sum of £177.15s. 9d. was realised.”
There follows a review of the season and matches. After which comes a list of fifteen Hampshire Umpires headed by H. Holmes of Totton, Hants with an asterisk saying “Holmes Benefit, July 2 and 3 Hampshire v. Hertfordshire, at the County Ground”.
Hampshire Results of Matches. County: played 10, won 2, lost 8. Club: played 7, won 2, lost 2, drawn 3.
Batting and Bowling Averages in 1885
Last Year’s Matches
Fixtures 1886
List of Clubs
Notable Bowling Performances of Hampshire Cricketers, 1885
Notable Batting Performances of Hampshire Cricketers (one double century A. Banbury 216 for South Hampshire Rovers)
Cricket Diary 1886
The Laws of Cricket. As amended by the MCC 1884
Laws of County Cricket
Cricket Diary for 1886 (for completion)
1887
Third year. Light brown cloth cover and price of sixpence, printed by A.J. Dyer “Hampshire Independent” Office, Southampton.
Contains a full list of Contents for the first time, however the Contents are not in the same sequence as the Guide:
The first List of Advertisers. There are fifteen advertisements at the front of the Guide and thirty-five at the end and one on the
back cover. Plus four interspersed totalling fifty-five.
The Preface starts with “I am glad to say that there was a larger demand for the Guide last year, but still, financially, it has not
been a success”. It ends with “Before this Edition will be out of the hands of the Press I shall have retired from the post of Hon.
Sec. to the H.C.C. Club, owing to circumstances over which Ihave no control”. (The circumstances being his military appointment).
The first sentence under HAMPSHIRE-1886 is “There was nothing in the season’s cricket to call for any special comment.”
A new wing has been added to the pavilion and a concrete pitch has been laid down to practice on a fast wicket.
Results of Matches. County Matches: played 10, won 3, lost 6, drawn 1. Other Matches: played 10, won 4, lost 1, drawn 5.
Three centuries recorded in the averages: F.E. Lacey 185, Dible 114, E.O. Powell 111.
President Mr. A.H. Wood, Treasurer and Secretary unchanged. No note of Club Captain.
List of Fixtures has, in addition, the fixtures for Northlands Rovers Cricket Club, of which Lt.-Col. Fellowes is Secretary
(pro. tem.) and the ground is the County Ground.
A new competition entitled the County Challenge Cup Competition was adopted in April 1887 and is added to the
Preface as a P.S. The Cup was generously offered by the President Mr A.H. Wood.
The fixtures for the First Round of the Competition (in May) are printed followed by the Rules.
The Laws of Cricket as amended by MCC 1884 and the Laws of County Cricket are included.
1888
Fourth year. Change of Secretary. Change of colour. Same size. Light red colour. Price sixpence.
Printed by A.J. Dyer, “Hampshire Independent “Office, Southampton
The new Secretary, Russell Bencraft, opens the Preface with “At the request of a large number of Secretaries and others, I
have decided to continue the publication of the Hampshire Cricketers’ Guide. Then the first line under HAMPSHIRE 1887 is
“The Season, 1887, can hardly be said to be a brilliant one so far as Hampshitre is concerned.” It ends “There’s an old saying that “it’s
a long lane that has no turning,” It’s been a long lane for Hampshire, but it is to be hoped we are near the end of it.”
Results of County Matches: played 10, won 1, lost 8, drawn 1.
Other Matches: played 7, won 2, lost 1, drawn 4.
F.E. Lacey finished with an average of 66 helped by a highest score of 323* against Norfolk. E.G. Wynyard scored 237 in an
innings for his regiment and 233 for Incogniti.
President Mr. F. Ricardo, Treasurer Dr. Russell Bencraft, Secretary Dr. R. Bencraft and Mr. Hugh K. Grierson, Captain Mr. F.E. Lacey.
For the first time an Executive Committee appears with twelve Members and a Ground Sub.-Committee of five.
For the first time the Guide contains Receipts and Expenditure and this extends back to 1868:
Results of each round of the Challenge Cup Competition, 1887. 5th Round (Final) Ordnance Survey beat Basingstoke and won the Cup. Fixtures for first round 1888 by June 9th.
1889
Fifth year. Dark red cloth cover. Printed at the Southampton Times Steam Printing Works, 11, Above Bar. Price sixpence.
Similar content to previous year. Preface states the Guide “has now reached its fifth year, and without doubt it has proved to be of great value to Cricketers throughout the County.” The first sentence in the review of the season is “The Season 1888 has been no exception to the ill luck
attending the efforts of the County Club in the field – a solitary win over Norfolk being all that can be claimed.” It also states that the cost of the new ground has been paid off.At the bottom of the page it states:
CAB FARES.
From the Docks to the County Ground, 1s. 6d.
6d. extra for each person over two.
This is the first guide to contain page numbers, though not mentioned in the Contents. The page numbers reach 76 before the advertisements and diary at the end.
President Mr. F. Ricardo, Treasurer Dr. Griffin, Secretaries: Dr. R. Bencraft & Mr. H.K. Grierson, Captain Mr. F.E. Lacey
Results of County Matches: played 9, won 1, lost 5, drawn 3.
Three centuries scored: Dible 188, H.W. Foster 125, C.R. Seymour 120.
Challenge Cup Competition won by Winchester beating Portsmouth.
1890
Sixth year. Dark red cloth cover. Printed at the “Southampton Observer” Office, 21, Bridge Street. Price sixpence.
Similar content to previous year.
Preface by Russell Bencraft. Review of the year opens “It cannot be said that the tide of misfortune that has followed our County
Eleven in the field of late years has yet turned, but there was evidently some improvement on the previous year.”
Want of funds has greatly handicapped the County of late.
Cab fares again mentioned, but page numbers have disappeared.
President A.F. Jeffreys, Esq., M.P., Secretaries H.W.R. Bencraft and H.K. Grierson, Treasurer J. Griffin, Esq., M.D. Captain H.W. Forster, Esq.
For the first time Auditors are mentioned Messrs. F.J. Blundell and C. Goldstone.
Results of County Matches: played 10, won 1, drawn 3, lost 6.
F.E Lacey tops the batting averages with 44 including 100*
Followed by Dr. R. Bencraft with and innings of 195.
Sergeant-Major Jeffkins scored 205 for Ringwood against Southsea Rovers
No details of the 1889 matches in the Challenge Cup Competition. Just the first-round fixtures and winners since the competition commenced. 1889 Hartley Row.
Two pages on The Southampton Public Parks Cricket Association. The Association was formed by an amalgamation of the ten Park
Clubs, which participate in the ballot for the Grounds. Mr. G. Bagshaw, who first made the suggestion acted as Hon. Sec.
The Parks was opened by a Grand Opening Match with a London Team, Waltham Green, and Mr. Tankerville Chamberlayne presented the Association with a magnificent silver-mounted Challenge Bowl, which was competed for by the Clubs affiliated to the Association.
It was eventually won by Adelaide.
This was the first series of The Hampshire Cricketers’ Guide.
1891 No publication
The second series began in 1892.
Click on the arrow to read more
2025 Hampshire Cricket Heritage Archive Room Report – November 2025
Note from Ray Stubbington and Glen Williams
2025 has been a very busy year in the Archive Room as the effort to digitize all our items has intensified. All Team Photographs have been scanned with just 4 years (1900, 1903, 1905,1926) missing from the last 125 years. Our Bats, Stumps and First Day Covers have all been catalogued as have the Framed and Unframed Pictures. Work on the Scorecards has come on immensely with the help of George Robson, whilst Ann and Brian Pollington ensure that the current collection is kept up to date.
The latest donation to our framed pictures collection came from our ex- head groundsman Nigel Gray and included a picture of the ground especially awarded to him for his contribution to the development of the ground when the Hilton was opened in 2015 by Catherine Zeta-Jones and which has been signed by her. We were also grateful to receive Signed Shirts donated by the Players including Tilak Verma (only the 9th Hampshire player to score a 100 on debut), the Australian super-star Ellyse Perry and this years PCA’s County Championship M V P, Kyle Abbott. We should also mention that our own Dave Allen has donated the shirt presented to him by Rod Bransgrove in recognition of his years of service to the Club.
The update to the A – Z is almost complete with 738 of the 788 players having either a photo or a signature (in most cases both) added and we are well on the way to creating a similar A – Z for the 139 Women who played for Hampshire from when the Club joined the League in 1997 to 2024. (For inclusion in the web site copy If anyone has any photos of the Teams or Players or any other information about those early years, please contact raystubbington@hotmail.com)
Ray Stubbington
It’s well known that of all the clubs with a sizeable ground we are the only one which does not have a museum. Add the fact our Archive is behind a door which needs security clearance and that means it’s not easy for us to show off our collection to Hampshire and other cricket fans in the way we would like. I’m sure under our new ownership, in due course, and with our help, they will rectify this situation and we will one day be proud of our own museum. In the meantime, we have endeavoured to convert part of the Archive so it is viewable by our HCH supporters and Hampshire members. Working in partnership with the club we conduct a number of ground tours which as a finale end up in the Archive. Due to the fragility of many of the objects on show It’s a viewing tour but I do enjoy gently throwing a signed Shane Warne ball just to see who catches it!
This year has been a great year for donations from our loyal supporters. The number of books including Handbooks and Wisdens has enabled us to run 3 very successful book sales. The sales are very rewarding. Not only do we get to fill gaps in our own supporters collections, we also raise real cash and as mentioned elsewhere in the report this has helped us to purchase some very rare John Arlott Monographs as well as many other John Arlott books. A good example is at our last book sale one of supporters donated a mint signed John Arlott book. What’s the fuss about John Arlott? Well not only, to many of a certain era was he the “Voice of Cricket” he was a
Hampshire man through and through and therefore our aim is to develop as good a collection of John Arlott books as time and funds permit.
Of course, it’s not just books we have donated to us. A Hampshire member contacted us earlier this year and asked us if we would like the original sign from the Phillip Mead stand at Northlands Road. We said yes immediately without knowing what to do with it but it now sits proudly on the wall of the Archive.
We recently received a significant donation of Hampshire items from Somerset Cricket Club. That is the beauty of cricket, no matter who we support we all work together. Thanks to Mike Unwin and his team at Somerset for thinking of us at HCH and making this happen.
The Archive is of course a living thing. Items come in, get catalogued and stored or displayed and some items come in which we are able to sell to help us purchase additional items for the collection. Our cataloguing system is robust and better than anything that has gone before but has stagnated a little and needs an extra effort to ensure that every item in the Archive is catalogued and has a photograph linking to its description…….It’s a work in progress!
Glen Williams
Click on the arrow on the right here to read the full article by HCH Chair Richard Griffiths
After that final day drama of the 2025 domestic season - which means Hampshire retain their County Championship Division One status in 2026 - no words can really express the combination of surprise and then gratitude that I felt towards Yorkshire on Saturday September 27th. In making it so hard for Durham on the last day of the season at Headingley to hang on for a draw, they gave ample proof of the integrity of this grand old competition. It may have changed when the Championship was split into two divisions (for the first time since 1890) in 2000, but essentially Hampshire will compete to win that coveted third title again next April, after all the heartache of the final month of this season. Only Somerset have been in the top flight longer than Hampshire who also endured the heartbreak of those Cup Final defeats on the two previous Saturdays in a very testing September. Add in the third narrow Cup Final defeat in the space of two weeks, this time for the Hampshire Women at the Utilita Bowl - to a strong Lancashire side - and it was a tough end to the 2025 season for every Hampshire Cricket supporter. Having said all that, we would be the envy of so many other counties to have progressed so well on all fronts in white ball cricket in all the men's and women's competitions.
Adi Birrell leaves with every good wish from Hampshire Cricket Heritage after his seven years in charge. He is clearly loved by the players and rightly admired by all of us who support this wonderful club. His genuine support for all those who actively volunteer for Hampshire Cricket Heritage has definitely not gone unnoticed. Modest, proud and extremley engaging, Adi leaves so many fond and lasting memories behind from his time in charge. It feels entirely right that Hampshire avoided relegation for him as much as any of the players.
With the season sadly over for six months, I wanted to sum up our year so far. From the outset, I would like to state again that I am extremely proud of being Chair of Hampshire Cricket Heritage. I would also like to acknowledge the fantastic work done for us by all our Officers, Volunteers and Supporters. Our aim is always to Protect and Develop the Hampshire Cricket Archive owned by Hampshire Cricket Heritage. We collect donations from our Supporters as well as buying from auctions/dealers. Such items this year have included John Arlott monographs to supplement our John Arlott Collection. Whichever way you look at it, we only have 4 or 5 monographs left to get in order to complete a very important part of our John Arlott collection. I never thought I would be saying that 2 years ago! This was down to all the efforts of all our Supporters and we had a great reaction to this appeal from our fabulous Supporters; we’re also most grateful to Glen Williams in our Archive Room for driving and curating that project.
We are always humbled by amounts raised by our famous Book Sales and we love meeting our supporters and thanking them for all they do for us. We have numerous Hampshire Handbooks/Wisdens/Hampshire books and it is great to help fellow Hampshire Crickets collectors develop their own Hampshire Cricket Collections, whilst collecting funds to purchase items for the Hampshire Cricket Archive. An item a Supporter donated to us really made me quite emotional. We were donated a range of Membership Cards with the special labels on them. The ones we already had in our collection were in the Book Sale in September. A Supporter couldn’t believe we had them on the stall and even had the one from their first season. The pleasure on their faces as they went back to their seats with it was a joy to behold. A special moment. We are also working with other County Cricket Heritage Groups and have already received items from Somerset, Sussex and Nottinghamshire. We are extremely grateful to them for all these items. Throughout 2025, we have been given many other items from numerous other families. You can read about some of these by clicking on the Archive Room / Updates or Supporters Page / Supporters Donations tabs at the top of this page. We clearly cannot feature all donations on this site, but rest assured every item is gratefully received.
A season's highlight came at the end of June when it was a real honour for HCH to host The Hampshire Former Players’ Reunion Day. Rob Pfeiffer at the club had done a fine job in gathering together a group of 30 Former Players for the event which was truly enjoyed by all. It really is fantastic to see all the heroes of your past. They say you should never meet your heroes but with Hampshire Former Players it couldn’t be further from the truth. We are always in awe of our special heroes from Hampshire Cricket. They have also helped us tremendously with many of our HCH publications which I’m sure you all enjoy. The flavour they add with their own reminisces is immeasurable. Dave Allen had recently retired as Hampshire Historian and he received the Rose and Crown from Rod Bransgrove in honour of all his efforts for Hampshire Cricket over too many years to count! The only previous winner was Tim Tremlett which shows the depth of Dave’s achievements. Trevor Jesty, on behalf of HCH, also presented Dave with various items of Hampshire cricket memorabilia from the 1949 season This was the year of Dave’s birth and included memorabilia from many Portsmouth cricket and football occasions. Well done Dave - well deserved.
In summary then a historic season for the Hampshire Women and Men on the field. Off it, there are some important thanks to record for HCH. Everyone at the club and at the ground has been immensely supportive in all our interactions throughout this summer again. The club itself has donated a number of playing kit items at the end of the season which will feature in our displays in the Archive Room, as we seek to capture and record the recent as well as the more distant past. We trust you will continue to find much of interest with new posts on this website each month over the winter. Hopefully, the fixture computer in late November will grant us a four-day trip to Scarborough next summer in the Division One Fixture List. Liam's Semi-Final knock there this summer, by the way, was up right there as a season's highlight - along with a number of Kyle's best efforts in so many red ball games - in the Hampshire summer that was 2025.
A summer when the sun shone virtually throughout and we got the right result for the men - right at the very, very end!
RG HCH Chair
October 7th 2025
1961 Championship winner Dennis Baldry in the centre with Brian Timms on his right at the 2025 Reunion
Trevor Jesty, Mike Taylor and Barry Richards at the 2025 Reunion organised by HCH
Hampshire Cricket in the Eighteenth Century
Edited by Timothy J McCann with Dave Allen (see note below by clicking on this arrow)
Now at a reduced price of £15 (plus £5 postage) - available by contacting Hampshire Cricket Heritage at hantscccheritage@gmail.com
Please note that all of our HCH Supporters can purchase at a further reduced price of £10 (plus £5 postage)
In 2004, Archivist Dr Tim J McCann published an award-winning History of 18th Century Sussex Cricket. He then began work on a similar project for neighbouring Hampshire, but sadly, he died in 2022 before the project was completed. In the summer of 2024, Tim's wife Alison gave a printed copy of this unfinished project to the Hampshire Records Office and then made a digital copy available to HCH Director Dave Allen. Since then, Dave has worked on this project and the result is this fantastic new publication.
Click the arrow here to read more
This new section, entitled "My Favourite Hampshire Game", features original writing from (or an interview with) current players, former players, administrators and supporters. The articles focus on a single first-class or one-day game involving Hampshire. Crucially, the writer or interviewee was there on the ground to either play in or watch the particular game that is featured. Over the next two years, it is planned that there will be a grand total of 75 different games and they will all appear in a new HCH book coming out in 2026.
The first 4 have been posted under the memories tab in full for your enjoyment. The list of the others to appear in the book are posted below these 4 on this page. The links to the scorecards of each game are also included for every game. 12 months after the book has been published and copies sold, we will post a number of them in full on this page of the website again in 2027.
The section has deliberately been entitled 75 Not Out for a reason: it is to honour a truly special servant of Hampshire cricket history. Our very own Dave Allen has devoted a lifetime to promoting the history and heritage of all things Hampshire cricket, and he turned 75 in October 2024. Just part of his unique legacy, of course, are all the displays and Honours Boards which adorn the Atrium. Anyone who enjoyed his commentaries, follows his informative blog or reads his numerous publications about our club will agree that it is very fitting that he has the honour to make his selection first from the hundreds of games he has watched since 1958. Dave received the Rose and Crown Award from Rod Bransgrove in June 2025 in recognition of all that he has done and continues to do for Hampshire Cricket Heritage.
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 bank transfer
(HCH Account: 67818860 Sort Code 30-98-97), or 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 Glen Williams, Hampshire Cricket Heritage Ltd.
All of our HCH Publications will also be available throughout the year in the Club Shop to purchase.
DOCUMENTING CHANGE: HAMPSHIRE’S CRICKET HISTORY
I am grateful for this opportunity to write about the historical work being undertaken at Hampshire Cricket as our contribution to a series on each of the counties in this journal.
At the end of the 2024 season, approaching my 75th birthday, I retired as the Historian, the public face of Hampshire Cricket, although as I shall reveal, that is not quite the end of my endeavours.
You will note that I name Hampshire Cricket. When I first became formally involved in preserving and presenting our history 30 years ago it was as a co-opted member of the Museum Sub-Committee of Hampshire County Cricket Club(HCCC), an organisation which ceased to exist shortly after our move to the then Rose Bowl, which held its inaugural first-class match in 2001. Since then Hampshire has been a limited company with members in name only and resembling rather more football season-ticket holders. The move from Northlands Road to the Bowl which now has its third full name (Utilita) in a quarter-of-a-century and the transfer of power from an elected committee to a Board makes our situation unique but our tale of heritage and history over that period might become more broadly applicable as we move into the days of 49%, Franchise take-overs and the like at other counties.
I am no economist or business expert so I will leave that tale to others but I can relate something of how at Hampshire we have approached the representation of our history in a context different both in terms of environment and management from that of any other members’ county club, with a 19th century ground.
I was a Hampshire member from my ‘junior’ days in 1961 but only became involved in the formal work on our history in the mid-1990s, after I offered the club the loan of a small but interesting collection of Hampshire cricket memorabilia. This led to an invitation to become a seconded member of the Museum Sub-Committee from the Archivist Neil Jenkinson which was approved by the full committee to whom we were responsible. Other ‘Museum’ members back then were mostly also on our full committee, including our former amateur bowler and cricket chairman Charlie Knott, cricket historian Andrew Renshaw, Major Doulas Nation who once played a pre-war first-class match while serving in India and gentleman farmer Andrew Murdoch.
The 30+ years since then have been an ‘interesting’ experience as I have gone from being the ‘bright young(ish) thing’ of the 1990s to the occasionally grumpy senior Historian in recent years. Given all the changes that have occurred along the way our experience over those thirty years is surely unique among county clubs not least in terms of the most pressing project which has been to find ways of sharing our history with members, supporters and at the ground at least, visitors.
In my experience, the majority of cricket lovers love tales of the past but perhaps for most of them it is their past; the players, grounds, matches, seasons or series that have had most impact on their cricket-loving lives that provide the material of their memories. Cricket is a very rich source of such memories since it is accompanied by a plethora of facts and the process, entirely understandable, often affords great pleasure - especially when shared, since more than say football, watching cricket, in particular the longer forms, allows plenty of time for conversations.
The challenge for a county Historian is to acknowledge this particular form of engagement with the past, allowing the ground and publications to become a canvas on which to paint this picture. But should it be more than that? If the engagement I have described so far is to be seen as a kind of (often well-informed) nostalgia how is that different from ‘History’ and what are the implications of such a distinction for what is made public? What forms should be used to make the past public and hopefully relevant today?
When we arrived at the Rose Bowl on D Day 2000 for a 2nd XI game on the Nursery Ground the main pavilion and ground were still building sites and for financial reasons the pavilion remained incomplete for some time – with two more stands and the hotel added some years later. While there was very little money to create displays there was at least a blank canvas on which to work.
When the 2nd XI played that first match we were still Hampshire County Cricket Club with the historians reporting to the full Committee. It is perhaps interesting to reflect on the people who were then running affairs, for they all lived in the county and in many cases were, like Neil Jenkinson and me, Hampshire born-and-bred. The Chairman Brian Ford from Bournemouth was a third generation Hampshire Committee man, Bill Hughes, a main driving force on the new ground was a former Hampshire Colt and member of Hampshire Hogs CC, Chris Ayling the club’s GP was from Portsmouth, the Chief Exec, Tony Baker was a well-known Southampton cricketer who had played for the 2nd XI, while recent Cricket Chairmen Charlie Knott and Jimmy Gray were successful Southampton-born Hampshire cricketers. There were others with similar local backgrounds,
Does that matter? I am not sure but I think it is worth asking the question at the moment when we hear that Hampshire might well be bought by an Indian Franchise and it is a question that has exercised me in a different respect in recent years. The main historical project at Hampshire can be traced at least back to the mid-18th century with the inaugural first-class matches often involving Hampshire/Hambledon and a century later came the formation of the County Cricket Club (1863) and its successor Hampshire Cricket plc. But our new ground has in recent years also hosted two other professional organisations not called Hampshire: The Southern Brave in the Men’s Hundred competition and the Southern Vipers women’s sides.
Their performances are these days recorded in the Hampshire Handbook with which I have been involved for many years although that part is dealt with by other people. Around the ground there are displays about the Vipers which they curate themselves and I have never had a conversation with anyone about whether they think the role of Hampshire’s Archivist/Historian should embrace these new formats and different team names. Should I continue to follow in detail the performances of Vince, Dawson and others in the Hundred, even when Dawson is playing for a team called London Spirit? If so to what extent? What is my role or that of the recently re-formed Hampshire Cricket Heritage (all men) in preserving and sharing the histories of regional women’s cricket, disabled sides, junior teams or the Academy, who this year won the Southern League for the first time?
I have generally avoided engaging with these implicit questions, perhaps because there is always something else to deal with but maybe betraying my own areas of expertise and bias against the Hundred and non-county names for sides – none of that a secret! In retirement I can choose my projects but those questions remain for my successors and others elsewhere. I wonder for example, what view my colleagues at Sussex take of the notion that their county is part of this thing called ‘Southern Brave’? Do they maintain the records for Mills, Archer and perhaps the side? What is the role of a County Cricket Historian in the second quarter of the 21stCentury? As an historian must I always take the disinterested position even in a project in which I have a life-long emotional investment?
I think it is well-known that our early years at the Rose Bowl were to say the least precarious financially and while there was very little money to create displays there was at least that blank canvas on which to work and that was often an interesting project.
In the winter of 2000/1 we brought everything across from Northlands Road which had been rapidly reduced to a demolition site and much of our memorabilia was stored in a Portacabin where the car park now stands. Initially an outside company was brought in to frame lots of photographs and hang them around the ground but they knew nothing of our history and did this simply on aesthetic grounds. With others I have spent most of the last 20 years moving them, firstly to create some historical coherence but secondly to pursue an alternative more contemporary aesthetic, in line with the Bowl’s 21st century architecture. To be specific, wherever possible we took a thematic approach to wall displays removing old wooden frames and producing large Perspex displays about trophy successes, leading Test cricketers, notable other teams and individuals. With little money we held book sales from members’ donations and pursued sponsorship from supporters’ groups or more modest amounts from individual supporters. I particularly enjoyed succeeding in renaming the Atrium in honour of John Arlott, using the exposed white iron girders to display his quotes about the players he knew and loved, from Lord Tennyson through to the 1970s trophy winners. Each quote on its own girder was sponsored by a supporter.
Away from the ground we created one or two exhibitions for other sites, notably marking the 150th anniversary of the formation of the club in 2013 at the Hampshire County Archives in Winchester and this year the anniversary of the first known match in Portsmouth at the city’s Central Library. These displays were designed like the Perspex boards but less expensively on foamboard and for some years the 150th boards were displayed in the Atrium – a history of 150 years of men’s county cricket. They were removed a couple of years ago which means that these days it is not so easy to find much acknowledgement around the ground of the great achievements of Wynyard & Poore, Mead & Brown, Kennedy & Newman and others beyond living memory.
In the past two or three years a new group of volunteers has arrived to succeed Stephen Saunders, Terry Crump and me in the re-formed Hampshire Cricket Heritage. Under Chair Richard Griffiths, John Winter, Glen Williams and Ray Stubbington have done a very fine job of properly organising the Archive which houses a Library, started post-war by Desmond Eagar, as well as many bats, balls, caps, stumps, trophies, photographs and scorecards. Both the latter have also been ‘digitised’ for easier use, not least on the brand new website at
https://www.hampshirecountycricketheritage.co.uk/
One of our main projects for the winter, led by Ray, is to update the players’ A-Z which I published in two editions a few years ago and add that to the website for all to see. Ray is particularly adept at searching out information about births, deaths and other details online where there are of course so may remarkable resources. For myself, I give thanks constantly for the wonder that is Cricket Archive but at Hampshire we have another volunteer, Tigger Miles, whose statistical site is equally valuable to us:
One of our key challenges has always been displaying the fascinating artefacts that we hold such as Wynyard’s record-breaking bat from 1897, ‘Butch’ White’s hat-trick ball of 1961, Barry Richard’s Champions cap of 1973 or the last (white) ball ever used at Northlands Road, signed and dated by Shane Warne. As Kit Harris noted in the 2024 edition of Wisden we have no museum or room of any kind in which to display such artefacts, so the Heritage website and a succession of shorter booklets - £5 each and numbering seven so far with more planned – have an important role. But how we would love to display more of our possessions – even if a formal museum has too many economic and organisational implications right now. For the time being, solid objects tend to appear at specific events including public talks.
So, what might come next? My first serious encounter with Hampshire cricket history at least 65 years ago was the ‘official’ history of the county club (1957) which stretched from Hambledon through about 200 years to the late 1950s and was written by three notable Hampshire historians, Harry Altham, Desmond Eagar and John Arlott, assisted in the statistics by Roy Webber. It was concerned almost entirely with men’s first-class cricket including the ‘great’ games at Hambledon but If we assume that the sharing of county histories is now broadening considerably beyond that focus, there are I think four key questions to be borne in mind as county historians or history groups plan future projects:
What is the anticipated or intended audience?
Who is communicating?
In what media and formats?
Who & what is being represented?
Addressing those questions can help us maintain and develop inclusive strategies for sharing the most wonderful histories with growing numbers of cricket enthusiasts and to finish I would like to give particular consideration to one particular group of ‘enthusiasts’ who seem to get quite a bit of media attention these days but are not obviously engaged in preserving and producing the histories of our game.
I am fairly typical of the breed of current cricket historians in age, background and disposition as part of that shrinking group that can recall watching county cricket when it consisted only of first-class matches – indeed I watched for ten years before there was more than the occasional limited-overs Gillette Cup match. The influence of those formative years is strong in my endeavours and that is one reason why it is time to move on and hand over.
But in the longer term, I am thinking of the so-called ‘new’ audience of families and particularly young people who we are told have been attracted to cricket in recent years. There might be among them and across two or three generations, cricket enthusiasts who could be encouraged to enjoy the past – however recent – alongside the present and ensure that the future for the historical project is secure, whatever its subject matter, whatever its forms and audience. I wonder how we might ensure that the future of cricket’s many histories is in safe hands in our digital, AI and multi-format future?
Dave Allen
September 2024
Take the ‘metro’ to an outground and don’t just keep the ticket!
Today is Friday August 2nd 2024; tomorrow it will be exactly 50 years ago to the day that I made one of the best decisions in my 61-year old life: I went to watch my first ever day of professional cricket at Portsmouth. By way of a kind of celebration, I am off to watch Warwickshire in a 50 over white-ball game at Rugby School in the Metro Bank Trophy. As an outground, it is simply a stunning venue. It also helps that there is a packed crowd of over 3,000, sitting out on white plastic chairs, enjoying the beautiful and hot, late-summer sunshine. There is, though, also a hint of autumn or two, with a few leaves on the outfield; the rugby posts are already up in place on the adjacent outfield, ready for the start of the new school year early next month.
It is a school like no other in the country with its own novel and unique contribution to British sporting life. The rugby memorial on the edge of the 1st Team outfield, adjacent to one of the largest and most beautiful trees at any cricket ground in the world, is a must to visit for any visitor here. Thomas Hughes’s “Tom Brown’s Schooldays” famous 1857 novel feels now very much a book of its time and, as a result, perhaps less necessary to visit on a winter’s evening. Every outground on the county circuit retains its appeal, particularly for the first time visitor. This is now my 53rd different ground watching at least one of the eighteen first-class counties during these past fifty years. From Basingstoke to Blackpool, Beckenham to Bournemouth, Canterbury to Colwyn Bay, Cardiff to Colchester, Chesterfield to Cheltenham, the journey continues to be a complete joy. The Hundred has definitely helped me in that regard, as this 50 over competition strives to find more temporary - if sometimes more upmarket and atmospheric - homes. Never mind being persuaded to get on The Hundred band-wagon or runaway train leaving from Platform 9 and three-quarters, just jump on the ‘metro’ for Sedbergh, Scarborough, Neath, Kibworth, Gosforth, Guildford, Northwood and Nettleworth for not just this, but, hopefully, the next few summers!
Warwickshire were also one of the two teams playing back then for my first game in August 1974 in a three-day Championship game. They were a team packed full of international class cricketers. The home team also happened to have three world class legends in their line-up that day with Richards, Greenidge and Roberts. Hampshire were reigning County Champions that season, with a rich mix of outstanding county professionals and a brilliant captain, Richard Gilliat. Today’s opponents for “The Bears” of Warwickshire are Surrey. There are two former international players on show in Foakes and Sibley, but otherwise it is a question of diving into my Playfair regularly to learn more about a host of promising youngsters - fresh from their own schooldays - on both teams. The venues are also linked, fifty years apart, in that my first ever ground at Burnaby Road in Old Portsmouth remains to this day the home of United Services Rugby. For the last 25 years, Hampshire have ceased to play there. For the twenty-five before that it was home from home for me - along with Northlands Road, May’s Bounty and Dean Court.
Today I made my way to the ground from the station with a best friend; we have both travelled into Rugby on separate trains. They run on time, thankfully, because I can’t relax until I complete the most important task of any day at the cricket. News overnight comes in that Hampshire are due to be bought by GMR - which has wholly or joint-owned Delhi Capitals since the creation of the IPL in 2008 - and my mind is racing about what changes that means for the future. The only thing that trumps those thoughts, however, is whether there will be a scorecard available to buy and then fill out neatly for today’s game. Before you stop reading this article immediately and condemn me for a level of disproportion, nerdiness and obsession that is mildly disturbing, please let me offer my solid and robust forward defence with my wide Ben Warsop - or better still - Jumbo bat. My truly heartfelt joy is that there are proper scorecards available - free of charge today - in the temporary Rugby School Club Shop (and catering van). It means I can now relax properly and acquaint myself with all these recent alumni from schools around the country who are just about to step onto this lush green outfield. I also have my special keepsake to archive away in a private collection, whose value only fellow avid collectors would fully appreciate.
Picture postcards, personal diaries, football programmes, love-letters, sepia family photos and cricket scorecards are all the stuff of wonderful nostalgia, where intrinsic value trumps monetary value every time. When asked by slightly nonplussed friends and family what the attraction is for collecting Test and County Cricket scorecards, it is so hard for me to express that in only a short text like this, let alone a few sentences. In the course of this article, the appeal of purchasing a scorecard as the first thing I do every time I go through a turnstile or entrance gate to watch a game of County or International cricket will be explained. It is sadly not a given, though, as a continuing pleasure going forwards. Scorecards are threatened with being consigned as much to the past as the exploits they record for posterity - especially when filled out accurately with accompanying key notes recording quirks, landmarks and boundary counts.
Just over a year ago the First Ashes Test, in this very county at Edgbaston, was capturing the imagination of the whole cricket watching public across the world. Crawley’s imperious cover drive to the first ball of the day, Brook’s freakish dismissal, Root’s majestic hundred, Stokes’ incredibly audacious declaration were just a few of the many highlights on Day One when I still felt slightly deflated watching in the Wyatt Stand. The fact Warwickshire and the ECB had decided not to issue a scorecard for that game left me with an irrational emptiness that left me feeling like football programme collectors now attending a game at the likes of Blackburn, Millwall or Reading (where they have ceased to be printed). Thankfully, someone in the know has also obviously changed that back now a year later at Edgbaston, in order that the devoted County Members are once again able to buy them at Warwickshire home games.
Even more than match tickets - which have also been collected by this writer for the past fifty years - they are a fantastic reminder of all those past games that you have been privileged enough to attend in person. Somehow they contribute to that enduring visceral feeling of knowing you were there to witness history being made. They are the tangible evidence which help archive and then revive memories of just being there at the game. Watching sport on TV is also one of my favourite past times; actually being at the game and ground in person, however, has always been a matter of taking that fun and enjoyment to a completely different level. It is like comparing a rich Italian meal on the Amalfi Coast, sitting outside a local family restaurant while bathing in beautiful sunshine under an azure sky, with fuelling in a hurry on a warmed up ciabatta in the microwave at home. In a nutshell, I was really there and have recorded that I was there.
Cricket scorecards - unlike football programmes which contain so much more information ahead of the game - have always meant so much more to me when they have been neatly completed and then filed away in the right place, long after the action on the field has finished. If duly completed with all relevant details, they serve to chronicle the factual details and personal landmarks achieved by the twenty two players in that particular game, preserved for posterity in the scribe’s memory bank. Consequently, collecting scorecards from games that I haven’t attended has never quite had the same appeal. Unsurprisingly, they also show how my handwriting has first matured and then definitely declined in terms of legibility through time!
Back in August 1974 I did something you will probably hardly see anywhere at a County Cricket match anywhere in the country this summer. I was only doing what generations of lads did before me, mind you. Aged 11, I walked twenty minutes to the local train station, caught the train to Portsmouth and Southsea station, spent 8 hours at the cricket watching Hampshire for the very first time and then caught the train home, arriving back after supper. It would almost be a Child Protection issue now, if a child of that age did likewise in 2024. Embracing that freedom, whilst sitting amongst adults and concentrating for the three two hour sessions of play, it did wonders for your powers of concentration and understanding of all the special facets of the game. Admittedly, with Barry Richards at one end and Gordon Greenidge at the other for some of that time, there could be no excuse. That 5p blue first scorecard, for a top of the table Championship game against Warwickshire at the start of Portsmouth Cricket Week, began my collection. The 121 partnership between BAR and CGG in Hampshire’s only innings on the way to an easy victory makes it a unique keepsake.
What it did mean as youngster, at that time, was you had three choices: (1) you sat and scored every ball in your own scorebook (which I preferred to do bizarrely for the JPL games on tv); (2) you completed the fall of wickets (and score at the end of each over in the limited over games) on your scorecard purchased before the start of play; (3) you did neither and nipped to play at the back of the stand when the action was less compelling. Since the scoreboard on all the grounds only gave the scores of the two batsmen at the crease, way before any mobile phone had been invented - let alone purchased - your scorecard acted as record of all that previously happened that day. When there were the full 120 overs in the day at Gillette Cup Games that was a huge amount to record and recall. In other words, for most on the ground, scorecards were an aide-mémoire. For me, they were a prized possession, just like my growing football programme and pre-decimalised coin collections. It was the age of Green Shield Stamps, Esso Cup Coins and Brooke Bond Cards after all.
Ever since the enforced Covid break, the printing of cricket scorecards to buy at our county cricket grounds has become a bigger lottery: should the time-honoured tradition be respected for loyal match going supporters, or will anybody notice if we save a few hundred quid on our very tight balance sheets? Scorecards have carried adverts on the reverse in all the time I have been collecting them, but maybe that revenue stream is harder to tap into in modern times. The fact that an electronic version - as an alternative to the printed card copy - gives you the same information, but without any of the same sense of uniqueness or permanence, spells “real danger”.
We are constantly challenged in our daily lives with what we keep and what we throw away. If we do keep it, why are we keeping it and how do we store it? The pace of technological change constantly asks questions of how we adapt and embrace opportunities to save what really matters in a more accessible form for others. Do we need to retain the physical article, when there is already an electronic copy? I would argue, like the best First Day Cover or specialist mini library, they are enhanced as a collection or series by every latest similar addition or edition. They have, as previously mentioned, no monetary value worth speaking of, even with a precious few signed by the leading protagonist, but in terms of personal importance, they remain a prize collection.
As the latest Ashes series last season demonstrably showed, it is getting increasingly harder to buy a scorecard at a professional cricket match in England. Were Warwickshire for the opening Test in July 2023 at Edgbaston, making the large contingent of Australian fans feel even more at home? Could they not have seen that such a great finish deserved a fine scorecard? There is of course no tradition down under for ever issuing scorecards at Ashes games. Why would we now suddenly start - 140 years later - following suit? Either through tough economics in the county game, changing spectator habits or the need to move towards an electronic version of previously printed material, they have now become an “endangered species” over here. The Lord’s One Day Finals had previously had match programmes (as well as scorecards), even before the introduction of the John Player Programmes in the mid- 1970’s, but they just don’t quite hold the same appeal.
Last summer, my Headingley Ashes Test Scorecard for the Third Test - with England now 2-0 down in the series - took on particularly special significance. It very nearly also doesn’t exist. A couple of weeks ahead of the game, I took a phone call from a cricket watching friend. He is first and foremost an avid collector of scorecards, but he also engages in a huge amount of voluntary work at both his beloved Hampshire and at Headingley, near where he lives. While the rest of the cricketing world were debating the ifs, buts and maybes around the Carey/Bairstow incident, we had bigger fish to fry in the north. Never mind a few of the more entitled Lord’s members stepping beyond any acceptable line, our big discussion on the phone revolved around the layout and format of a homemade Ashes Scorecard for the 3rd Ashes Test to go on sale only in the Yorkshire Museum. All profits from its sales would go to the Yorkshire Cricket Foundation supporting charitable work in the wider Yorkshire area. For five times the price there would, of course, be a less than glossy, expensive match programme on sale, with over half the contents exactly the same as the match programmes on sale at all the other four Ashes Tests.
The discussion initially centered around likely line-ups for both teams, with injuries and form making it a difficult call. In the end, CR Woakes and MA Wood came into the England side with devastating effect. Australia were to make three changes with MR Marsh lighting up Day One with 118 off 118 balls. Limited by certain parameters of what could be printed, we decided against putting the counties and states next to the players' names, as they do at Lord’s with their scorecards. What we did though was add the heading THE ASHES, having been spared the need to splash the sponsor’s name for this series across the top. Each player had his full initials before the surname and his national team number after it. That of course was not always the case on either count. The distinction of amateurs and professionals was denoted at different grounds, either by the inclusion of initials or the position of those initials either before or after the surname.
Imagine my joy then a year on for my Hampshire Scorecard Collection: Warwickshire had started issuing proper scorecards again for Championship matches, and not just pieces of paper. In a far less rarefied atmosphere than an Ashes Test - at the end of Day Three of the Warwickshire v Hampshire County Division One clash at Edgbaston in June 2024 - my completed scorecard for the game now records that Ashes Headingley star, CR Woakes, had a tough day back in the office. Hampshire declared on 453-6 from 117 overs in which he remained wicketless. He did though bowl 19 very tidy overs on his return after a break from the game. Of far greater statistical significance is a record stand of 255 for the sixth wicket by two greats of the modern Hampshire era, JM Vince and LA Dawson. My written notes at the bottom of the scorecard document that Vince scored an unbeaten 166 off 197 balls, which was his 29th first-class century, while Dawson’s 120 from 157 balls, was his 15th. The previous record for the sixth wicket for Hampshire against Warwickshire in the County Championship had stood for 96 years. Two more Hampshire greats of the early 20th Century, Phil Mead and Jack Newman, had added 251 together at Bournemouth in a game Hampshire won by 8 wickets.
The reason why this is so significant is I have waited 50 years since I saw my only other Hampshire first class record partnership against Warwickshire. Bob Stephenson and Mike Taylor added 124 crucial runs in the first innings for the eight wicket back then at Burnaby Road in that top of the table clash. It is a record which still stands today. The record for the ninth wicket for Hampshire against Warwickshire is far older, far larger and in some ways far more famous: 101 years ago, CP Mead (222) and WR de la C Shirley (64) added 197 in Hampshire’s 511. Hampshire won the game by an innings, exactly a year after winning at Edgbaston in that legendary comeback game where they had been bowled out for just 15 in the first innings. Oh to have been lucky enough to have been there on the ground in Birmingham June 1922 and bought that scorecard!
Today’s game is a minor modern classic of its own for my scorecard collection. Surrey managed to take the game to the last ball of the day, needing four to win. That seemed highly improbable even at the start of the last over, with the traditional rabbit followed by the ferret (numbers 10 and 11 both new to the game and to the crease) still needing 20. Chasing down Warwickshire’s 311-9 in their fifty overs, Surrey amazingly only lost by 3 runs in the end. Dom Sibley’s 149 was eventually in a losing cause, but was a knock appreciated and applauded by both sets of supporters, who have seen him take far fewer risks for both their respective teams in the past.
No scorecard can, of course, reveal all the minutiae of every game, nor indeed any of the back story, intrigues or full context of any particular game in any particular competition in any particular era. However, they can serve as a wonderful reminder of that innings, catch, run-out, partnership, dismissal or spell which you can only say with absolute certainty that you were there to see when the completed evidence is always neatly filed and ready at hand. My scorecard collection of only the games I have been there to see is a treasure trove of memories that include last ball finishes in a Lord’s final between Hampshire and Warwickshire, too many Hampshire last ball semi-final cup defeats to mention, Botham’s ballistics, Gower’s grace, Greenidge’s greatness, Anderson’s accuracy and Hampshire heroes who have given me so much pleasure for half a century. It also includes that final day at Headingley in 2019 when Leach made 1 and his mate at the other end smashed Australia to all parts of Leeds. Being in the Western Terrace that day with my cricket-loving family was priceless; my match ticket and neatly-completed scorecard are both truly great keepsakes.
What Surrey would have given for the last ball of the game to be smashed on the up through extra cover for four to win the game today! Somehow certain names and initials, certain numbers and scenarios, certain records and near misses often come to mind, either when I complete the scorecard after the game at home, or when I browse through my collection on a winter’s evening. Electronic devices may be the way forward when paying for one, but I still need my scorecard to remain a physical object to acquire wherever first-class cricket is played in this country. T20 Finals Day has been a lost cause for a number of years in this regard, but maybe someone at Edgbaston or the ECB will read this article and see the light! As a Hampshire fan, desperately willing every season to see your team win their first County Championship Title since you began watching them, you have to remain the eternal optimist! 50 years ago this week, after my first two games, they were 31 points clear as reigning Champions with five games to go. Unlike today’s beautiful weather in Rugby, the rain fell and fell and the rest is history.
The final point to add is that my scorecard collection will eventually be donated to Hampshire Cricket Heritage, which is housed in the Archive Room of the Shane Warne Stand at the Utilita Bowl.
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.
In the International area of the Website, we will include - over the next three years - more and more information about our Australia section in the Hampshire Archive Collection, in the build up to our first ever Ashes Test at the Utilita Bowl in 2027. We also want to recommend some really good books on this site - under the International Tab - relating to previous Ashes series, some of which will be on sale at our Book Sales in the Club Shop in May and August each year. If you have any cricket books that you wish to donate to our Archive Room, please just drop them off at The Club Shop, which is open between 10 and 4 on most weekdays of the year.
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 content on this Homepage will be updated every month
Click on the Home Page Archive Tab under the Home heading at the top of this page for all previous month HCH Homepages for this site - since its launch in April 2024
HCH Book Sale in May 2024
A "Butch" White ball in the Archive Room
Some of the HCH Team in 2024
HCHPublications on Sale
