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 our first BooK Sale in the Club Shop on Days One and Two of the Hants v Durham game on Friday 10th and Saturday 11th May 2024.  

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

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!

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.