62: The Nutters
THE FRIENDLY NU
ricketing glossary has been expanded blue, light blue, and yellow. on 12th September, 1850. with some unseemly terms in recent It’s just a small part of the traditional village “We have records of games being played every Cyears. cricket ethos that Nuthurst likes to portray, the season right through to the 1880s. Grand Spot fixing, arguing with an umpire, ball biting, most important being a commitment to Sunday matches were played on the Common in slapping, match fixing, and players who refuse matches. Mannings Heath, with the son of the local to walk have called into question cricket’s When a league format was launched on vicar inviting teams primarily made up of reputation as ‘the gentleman’s game.’ Saturdays, the Nutters refused to play ball, and gentleman bankers from London. But Nuthurst Cricket Club is more traditional in ever since have upheld the time-honoured “Then in 1891, it dropped off a cliff. The team its approach... principles of the game against touring teams were being given a hard time in the local press We meet The Nutters as they casually arrive at from London and the south of England. for playing teams of ‘ringers’ basically. Village Mannings Heath Common, the team’s home David Boorman, who has written a book on teams would come to the Common and be ground for at least 164 years, to prepare for a the history of Nuthurst Cricket Club, said: “The stuffed by players from Horsham, with the match against President’s XI. club’s first recorded cricket match was against team having little connection to Nuthurst. The mood is relaxed; Kevin Barnes is scrubbing Brighton Junior Club at the old Royal Ground “It was bad form, and that might be the reason the barbeque, Emmerdale actor and village in Brighton in 1830. why there are no records of any matches from resident Bhasker Patel – playing for the visitors “The first match that we can trace on the 1891 to 1904, when the Nutters appeared – is making the tea and there’s no great urgency Common was in 1850, although almost once more with the local vicar at the helm. The for players to get ready. certainly there were matches beforehand. team has played ever since, aside from the war Players are wearing cloth caps, made by MS John Chart, licensee at The Dun Horse, ran the years.” Michael of Chatham. The Nutters once sported team at that time, and thanks to a poster in Games are friendly but competitive. Nuthurst a quarter-patterned cap, but now they have a The Foresters Arms in Horsham we know of a did play in a short-lived Horsham and District hooped style with the club colours of dark match between Nuthurst and West Grinstead League, against teams including Southwater, 63
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