New for the week beginning Monday 21st October 2024 

For Number Three in the new series - on this site - entitled My Favourite Game again, it is a great privilege that we have our first former player giving us his unique insight into playing against that great Australian side in 1975. Not just was Andrew Murtagh good enough to play in that Hampshire team during the greatest period in the history of the club, but he has gone on to become a great teacher and coach, as well as highly respected cricket writer, after retiring from the game.  He specialises in cricket biographies and his subjects have included Tony Greig, Colin Cowdrey, John Holder, Tom Graveney and George Chesterton. 

Missing from that list is the best cricket book I have read in the 21st Century: his biography of Barry Richards, called Sundial in the Shade. It is an absolute must read for anyone who loves cricket.  Throughout the book, the degree of admiration that Andy has for the genius of Barry is matched only by the genuine warmth of their enduring friendship. As you will see from Andy's piece, he is an exceptional writer on a number of levels. Despite being busy on a number of other writing projects, Andy could not have been more supportive in recalling that incredible duel between Barry and the Australians back in 1975, where he got to meet Jeff Thomson from 22 yards away, with Ian Chappell fielding at slip. 

The page entitled My Favourite Game is under the Memories Tab on this site. You can click the dark blue link below to take you to My Favourite Hampshire game. 

The second very exciting new feature this week is the launch of a new monthly column for the next six months, written by our first HCH Chairman Terry Crump. Terry played a huge part in establishing Hampshire Cricket Heritage five years ago, along with Dave Allen, Richard Griffiths and David Ackland. He was also very proud to be Chairman of Hampshire Cricket Members' Committee, and it is primarily in that role that he will recall visits to away matches for his column entitled, Have Badge will Travel - A Dying Breed. Click below to read Terry's recollections of watching Notts v Hampshire in 2010 from the splendour of the pavilion at Trent Bridge. 

John Winter HCH Website Editor

Last Updated: October 21st 2024

New for the week beginning Monday 14th October 2024 

Number Two in the new series - on this site - entitled My Favourite Game has an Australian theme. It has been written by a man who has made a huge contribution to Hampshire Cricket Statistics, Bob Murrell. His HCH Publication Hampshire Cricket First-Class Top Tens was published in 2008. The page entitled My Favourite Game is under the Memories Tab on this site. You can click the dark blue link below to take you to My Favourite Hampshire game.  

John Winter HCH Website Editor

Last Updated: October 14th 2024

My Favourite (Hampshire) Game

How to join us and be one of the 75

We are now want former and current players, as well as valued supporters to contribute to this section of the Website to celebrate Dave Allen turning 75 . The only criterion is that your selection must be a Hampshire game you either played in or were at the ground to watch in person. These will be the five optional questions for each contributor to include in some form in his or her piece:

What was the context of the game?

What were the key incidents/details/statistics?

What do you remember most about the game?

Why was it your favourite ever Hampshire game?

Which other games came close to being your first choice? 

No more than three or four sentences are needed for each question. Any pictures, articles or reminders as photos you also want to attach will be added to the piece on this site. Please just email us at hantscccheritage@gmail.com and we can contact you on how to help turn your memories into an article on your favourite game.  We will happily write it for you, if you just get in touch with your choice.

Hampshire v Northants

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

Northlands Road, Southampton

Northants 108 and 148 (Mottram 4-27)

Hampshire 167 and 90-3

Result: Hampshire won by 7 wickets

Written by Dave Allen  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

October 2nd 2024

New for this week beginning October 7th 2024 

In the first week of this month, we have been given a truly prized artefact for our growing Hampshire Cricket collection. It was previously housed in the Lord's Museum. In order to read more, click on the first link below, which takes you to the Archive Room Updates on this website.

John Winter HCH Website Editor

Last Updated: October 8th 2024

New for October 2024 

Hampshire beat Somerset in the last game of the season to finish runners-up in Division 1 for the first time since 2005. (Week Twenty-Eight in 2024) Apart from the Championship winning years of 1961 and 1973, it matches the highest place finish of 1955, 1974 and 1985. Read about the last week of the season for Hampshire in the Weekly Journal on this site - see second link below. 

The biggest news of the week post-season is the fact announced in the press that Hampshire have signed a deal with Delhi capitals co-owners the GMR group to finalise a takeover of our club. What that means in terms of both change and stability, only time will tell.

John Winter HCH Website Editor

Last Updated: October 5th 2024

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 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

Hampshire Cricket Heritage's Own Recent Booklets 

All Priced £5 in the Club Shop or £7.50 by post

1. 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 from 22nd August in the Club Shop

The content on this Homepage will be updated every month