New for July 2024
Hampshire won their third Championship game of the season against Kent, with a majestic 211 from James Vince. His timing, as always, was perfect through the off-side in particular. The win features prominently in this week's 2024 Journal - on this site under the Memories of Every Season tab - which you can read by clicking on the link below. The skipper's timing was also perfect, given a large number of former players were watching from the Hampshire Suite at the Utilita Bowl on Sunday 30th June. We have a new HCH publication just out on Portsmouth Cricket Week in 1974 (featured below) which is now on sale for £5 in the Club Shop.
Sam Pothecary's County Cap
The most recent addition to our Hampshire Cap Collection is a very special one. It is the County Cap awarded to Sam Pothecary in 1927. Glen Williams has been in person to collect it in June 2024 from the Pothecary family, after they contacted HCH with the express wish of donating it to the Archive Collection. Sam's son and daughter have very kindly donated Sam's cap awarded in 1927 for a player who represented his native county in 271 matches across a 20 year career with the club. He made nine centuries, including a career-best 130, amassing 9,477 runs. Bowling slow-left-arm, he also took 52 wickets with a best of 4-47. Aged 40, he managed three Championship matches in the season after the end of the Second World War, before then working as a groundsman, coach and umpire in the professional game right up until 1975. His cap is now very much a prized possession in our collection.
Hampshire Cricket Heritage's Own Recent Booklets
All Priced £5 in the Club Shop or £7.50 by post
Simply the Best? Kyle Abbott 17-86 (2020) Dave Allen - available by email request to HCH at hantscccheritage@gmail.com
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 by email request to HCH at hantscccheritage@gmail.com
4. Champions: Hampshire's County Championship 1973 (2023) Dave Allen - available by email request at hantscccheritage@gmail.com
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
New for July 2024
Celebrating the Great Hampshire side of 50 Years Ago
A Glorious Week
Hampshire in Portsmouth August 1974
John Winter
with
Bob Stephenson, Bob Herman, Trevor Jesty and Mike Taylor
Copies of the Limited Edition of 200 are available for £5 in the Hampshire Shop at the Utilita Bowl from June 30th 2024 or by contacting Hampshire Cricket Heritage at hantscccheritage@gmail.com
From the remarkable summer exactly 50 years ago, John Winter recalls with the help of four former stars of the 1974 Hampshire team a memorable Portsmouth Cricket Week where close rivals Warwickshire and Worcestershire were both beaten by an innings.
Strengthened by the arrival of Andy Roberts in 1974, reigning County Champions Hampshire were the best side in the country and they were at the height of their powers for the two games featured in this latest publication by HCH.
The Website for All Hampshire Cricket Heritage Supporters
Welcome to our new website for Hampshire Cricket Heritage Supporters. We have 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 at one of our Book Sales in the Club Shop on Days One and Two of the Hants v Durham game in May or on Days One, Two and Three of the Essex game in 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
Sincere thanks for all the support for our very successful HCH Book Sale in the Club Shop at the Utilita Bowl on Days One, Two and Three of the recent Hampshire
v Durham game in May. We raised over a thousand pounds - through the sales of books, handbooks, and pictures - which will all be used to purchase historical items of interest to expand our rich collection of Hampshire Cricketana. We also had another eight people join us this week, making valued donations, as HCH Supporters.
Some of our most recent acquisitions at HCH include these cricket balls from 1965 - when Yorkshire were bowled out for just 23 at Middlesbrough - and from the Hampshire v Leicestershire game at Portsmouth in 1966, which commemorates Butch White taking a record breaking 9 for 44.
If you want to contact us on how to become a valued HCH Supporter, or offer any suggestions and donations for future HCH Book Sales, please just write to us at hantscccheritage@gmail.com
Next Book Sale in the Club Shop at the Utilita Bowl
Thursday 22nd August 2024
Friday 23rd August 2024
Saturday 24th August 2024
Days One, Two and Three of the Hampshire v Essex game
New for May and June 2024
With the Red Ball season now well under way and the start of the Vitality Blast T20 just around the corner, there are plenty of new articles about current themes relating to Hampshire Cricket at the start of the new 2024 season.
New for April 2024
Despite not a ball being bowled up in Durham, there are plenty of new articles about current themes relating to Hampshire Cricket at the start of the new 2024 season.
Batting Debuts
With poor Ali Orr sitting in the pavilion with all the other players at Chester-le-Street, still waiting to make his debut for Hampshire on Day Three - after his winter move across the South Coast from Sussex - Dave Allen updates us all on the memorable Hampshire batting debuts in the Club's history. There have been seven centurions to date. None of the seven were making their first-class debut though. On that same theme, John Winter focuses on the match back in 1994 where a player making their first-class debut in a Hampshire game came closest to making a hundred in their first game.
A Memorable Day
In April 2024, Dave reflected upon his first day ever at the cricket in the summer of 1959, how he has remained hooked ever since and how the game has changed in those 65 years. The time span is significant because it marks exactly half the number of years Hampshire have been playing First Class Cricket. In the first 65 years, they created some incredible memories with outstanding players and characters. In the past 65, they have won every trophy in our famous Club's history, including of course the two memorable Championship wins of 1961 and 1973, Sunday League titles, brilliant victories in numerous Lord's Finals and of course the most recent three dramatic T20 Finals Day victories. Enjoy reliving that first day in Portsmouth - before the Swinging Sixties had begun - with a certain Shackleton poised and ready, ball in hand!
We are very pleased to launch this new website in early 2024 called Hampshire Cricket Heritage for you to visit to learn far more about the history of Hampshire County Cricket Club. It is very much a work in progress and will have content added on a regular basis. The tabs across the Home Page 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 to share images and information on much of the collection in the Archive Room on the website as we develop the site. It will also contain numerous essays about all aspects of Hampshire's rich cricket history, grouped under the headings above.
Latest Articles Posted in March 2024
The latest HCH E-Magazine - Number 2 -
"In Safe Hands" was emailed out to HCH Supporters for the start of the 2024 season.
Key Links for this Website
The Home of Hampshire Cricket Heritage Ltd.
Hampshire Cricket Heritage Ltd was formed in 2019 to maintain and exhibit a collection of artefacts, ephemera and memorabilia (The ‘Archive’) relating to all aspects of cricket played in and by Hampshire. Hampshire Cricket Heritage Ltd has a long-term purpose and holds the Archive in trust for the benefit of the public. The Archive has altruistic objectives: it is for the benefit, enjoyment and engagement of all members of society for study and research, and to generally promote an enjoyment and understanding of cricket and its social, cultural and community impacts.The Archive managed by Hampshire Cricket Heritage Ltd is very rich in historic material relating to people, places and events from the origins of cricket in Hampshire to the present day.
Hampshire Cricket Heritage is established as a limited by guarantee company with no shareholders and with no Directors benefiting from any profitable trading revenue. HCH has the intention of managing an archive of Hampshire cricket history and delivering educational, social and community benefits, specifically by working in partnership with entities and organisations to protect, maintain, purchase and display artefacts, ephemera and memorabilia. HCH also explores funding opportunities and applications as necessary to meet its aims and objectives. Hampshire Cricket Heritage Ltd. will seek, when necessary, to procure grants independently or in association with third parties in order to maximise the aims and objectives of Hampshire Cricket Heritage Ltd.
The Archive Room is run by The Archive Room Committee of Hampshire Cricket Heritage which was established in November 2023. The current members of that committee are Dave Allen, Richard Griffiths, Ray Stubbington, Glen Williams and John Winter. Our aim is to re-organise this room over the next 12 months, cataloguing all its contents, with a view to making it more accessible to our HCH supporters in 2025. If you have anything that relates to Hampshire Cricket that you could donate to our growing Archive Room Collection, please just email us at hantscccheritage@gmail.com
Our first Archive Room Open Day for all HCH Supporters
will be Day Two of the Kent Game on Monday July 1st 2024.
More details to follow on this website.
In the Archive Room Section under Scorecard Collection on this site, we want to include information about what we consider to be our best 100 Hampshire First Class Cricket Scorecards. The century counting down will feature at least one against each of Hampshire's major opponents. Some of the most historic and memorable games against each opponent will be recaptured through focusing on the original completed scorecard. We will feature one or two each month, starting with a truly memorable game from last season (number 99). The other is our first ever game against our opening day opponents in the 2024 County Championship, Durham (number 100).
It is very important to us to be able to share various aspects of the club’s history with you through our own publications. Dave Allen’s work will be familiar to all of you with recent definitive books on the history of Hampshire County Cricket.
Dave, the Club’s Historian, is a key figure on the Board of Hampshire Cricket Heritage. These are the latest monographs below that he has written and published over the past five years for Hampshire Cricket Heritage.
Kyle Abbot’s 17-86 against Somerset at the Ageas Bowl in September 2019 were the finest figures - by a pace bowler - ever recorded in a first class fixture in the history of cricket in this country. The achievement prompted Dave in 2020 to launch the first monograph produced by Hampshire Cricket Heritage.
The second one on Derek Shackleton complements the new Shackleton display in the Pavilion which Dave organised in conjunction with the club.
Dave wrote in his book "Hampshire County Cricketers", in his entry for Derek, "By a number of statistical measures, pace bowler Derek Shackleton was the greatest of all Hampshire bowlers".
50 years on from the brilliant championship win against all the odds (66-1 at the start of that season in 1973), Dave’s account of that triumph became available to buy for £5 last March. It is a limited edition of 100 - with a few still left to buy, if you contact Dave at: davehccc@gmail.com
The very latest publication and the fifth booklet from HCH is called "Ordained Hampshire Cricketers." Written by Stephen Saunders, it features the 29 church men who have played at least one game for Hampshire, starting in 1805. Entries in this fascinating collection of biographies of ordained vicars include Rev. Canon John Glennie Grieg (Hampshire Career 1901-22) who leads the way with 77 games.
Rev. Gilbert Laird Osborne Jessop was the only child of "The Croucher" - of 1902 Oval fame - and his 3 appearances came in 1933 after he joined Havant CC. All original research undertaken by Stephen and a welcome addition to the collection.
Anyone wishing to purchase a copy for £10 (including postage) should contact Dave Allen at
: davehccc@gmail.com
Copies of the new HCH Booklet "A Glorious Week" - featuring Portsmouth Cricket Week in August 1974 - will be on sale in the Club Shop for the first time at the Championship game against Kent which starts on Sunday 30th June.
There is no video footage of Portsmouth Cricket week in 1974, but just over 12 months later in 1975 at Darley Dale in Derbyshire, Barry Richards and Gordon Greenidge set up a JPL victory in the last game of the season in front of the tv cameras to help ensure that the club won their first ever one-day title. Their 121 partnership v Warwickshire at Portsmouth in 1974 was a real highlight of that glorious week.
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 relating to previous Ashes series which we have in our Lending Library for our own HCH Supporters on this International Page. Our hope is that the Lending Library Service will become operational from the Archive Room from October 2024. If you have any Ashes books you can donate to our Lending Library, please just drop them off at The Club Shop.