The Story of Wivenhoe Cricket
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
THE STORY OF WIVENHOE CRICKET The Story of Wivenhoe Cricket Jon Wiseman Oxford Publishing Services Published in 2011 by Oxford Publishing Services 34 Warnborough Road, Oxford, OX2 6JA www.oxfordpublishingservices.com Copyright © Jon Wiseman, 2011 The right of Jon Wiseman to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author. ISBN: 978 0 9550031 3 4 Typeset in Berkeley Oldstyle Cover design by Meaden Creative Printed by Antony Rowe Limited Contents List of Illustrations and List of Scorecards vii Acknowledgements xi Foreword xiii Introduction xv Part One – The Story of Wivenhoe Cricket 1. 1765 to 1855: Gamesters, Gambling, Purses and Prizes 1 2. 1856 to 1868: The First Gentleman Patrons of Wivenhoe Cricket 9 3. 1869 to 1908: Growth of the Club at the Tenacres Cricket Ground 20 4. 1909 to 1921: The Wilderness Years and the First World War 45 5. 1922 to 1945: A Permanent Home at Rectory Road 49 6. 1946 to 1976: Postwar Growth at Rectory Road 75 7. 1977 to 1989: Transformation from Village to Club Cricket 102 8. 1990 to 2011: The Modern Era of Coaching and Club Cricket 126 Part Two – Records and Registers Registers of Key Personnel and Trophy Winners 159 Notes to the Registers 159 Senior Officers of the Club 160 Captains of the Teams 170 Vice-Presidents, Life Members and Trustees of the Club 174 The Trophy Winners 175 Club Records 185 Notes to the Records 185 Individual Batting Records 188 Individual Bowling Records 191 All-Rounder Records 194 All Matches Team Records 198 Two-Counties First Eleven League Matches 199 v THE STORY OF WIVENHOE CRICKET Two-Counties First Eleven Sunday Challenge and Senior Cup Matches 200 Two-Counties Second Eleven Matches 201 Two-Counties Second Eleven Junior Cup Matches 202 Two-Counties Third Eleven Matches 203 North Essex Cricket League First Eleven Matches 204 North Essex Cricket League Second Eleven Matches 205 Part Three – The 271 Capped Wivenhoe Cricketers Notes to the List 209 The 271 Capped Wivenhoe Cricketers 211 vi Illustrations Images appear by kind permission of the following: Bill Loveless, 30; Essex County Newspapers, 6, 18, 26, 32, 34, 35, 37, 40, 45, 46, 48, 55, 58; East Anglican Daily Times, 63; David Frith collection, 2, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16; Glendower Jackson, 27; Ray Watsham, 39; Charles Scofield, 41; Gerry Lucking, 49; Sue Halsey, 56; Julia Brinkley, 61; British Library Board, 6, © Essex Standard, edn. 20/6/1908, p. 71. All other images are from the archive of Wivenhoe Town Cricket Club, some of which have been supplied by club members and are reproduced on the understanding that permission was granted when the images were supplied. 1. The 1765 match 1 2. A cricket match in the 1760s 3 3. The 1770 match 4 4. The 1771 match 5 5. The 1772 match 6 6. Sir Claude Champion de Crespigny (4th Bart.) 17 7. The author at Toorak House 22 8. Concert for club funds 23 9. Wivenhoe c.1896 26 10. Extracts from a nineteenth-century cricket club cashbook 27–9 11. Second eleven, 1902 30 12. Richard Prescott Keigwin 32 13. Digby Jephson hits to leg 33 14. Digby Jephson, 1902 34 15. Henry Dawes Swan 36 16. Gentlemen XI v Players, Lords, 1899 44 17. Wivenhoe c.1921 47 18. First eleven, 1924 52 19. First eleven, 1928 55 20. First eleven, 1929 56 21. The newly-built pavilion, 1932 57 22. The new pavilion by Cumberworth, 1932 58 vii THE STORY OF WIVENHOE CRICKET 23. The historic cricket grounds of Wivenhoe 59 24. W.G. Loveless by Cumberworth, 1932 60 25. Charles Ashley 61 26. Second eleven, 1934 63 27. Wivenhoe players in fancy dress, 1935 66 28. Blueprint of the Rectory Road ground, 1936 68 29. Purchase of Rectory Road, 1936 69 30. W.G. Loveless, his son Bill with Denis Compton in 1951 72 31. George Slaughter 76 32. The four elder statesmen of Wivenhoe cricket, 1962 77 33. Ron Woods 81 34. First eleven, 1949 83 35. Annual awards ceremony, 1948 84 36. Cricket club fête, c.1950 85 37. Opening the cricket club fête, 1960 87 38. Essex cricketer Ray Smith at annual dinner, 1951 88 39. A cricket club wedding, 1954 91 40. Annual dinner, 1959 91 41. Dr Walter Radcliffe 93 42. First eleven, 1960 94 43. The Scofield clock unveiled, 1966 95 44. Second eleven, 1965 95 45. First eleven, 1976 98 46. The victorious six-a-side team, 1970 99 47. Neil Foster 103 48. Second eleven, 1975 105 49. Mike Lucking 108 50. Second eleven, 1985 113 51. Wivenhoe on tour in Corfu, 1983 115 52. Sticky Wicket, the resident club band, c. 1985 116 53. Wivenhoe v Old Boys, 1985 117 54. Building the kitchen and bar extension, 1986 118 55. The opening of the bar and kitchen by Neil Foster, 1987 118 56. Andy Halsey 119 57. Development of the cricket club pavilion from 1932 to 1992 122–3 58. Opening the latest extension with Don Topley, 1994 124 viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND LIST OF SCORECARDS 59. First eleven, 1990 132 60. First eleven, c.1996 139 61. Second eleven, 1995 140 62. The proposals for a new ground, 1998 143 63. First eleven, 2000 145 64. President’s Day, 2003 147 65. First eleven in fancy dress, 2010 150 66. Third eleven, 2002 152 67. President’s Day, 2010 154 68. First eleven, 2011 155 69. The trophies, 2009 175 Scorecards Rev. E.T. Waters’s XI v Sir Claude de Crespigny’s XI, 1858 10 Mr Daniels’ XI v Sir Claude de Crespigny’s XI, 1859 12 Wivenhoe Men’s XI v Wivenhoe Boys’ XI, 1863 15 Wivenhoe v Essex Club & Ground, 1907 40 Rowhedge v Wivenhoe, 1924 53 Harwich British Legion v Wivenhoe, 1928 54 Royal Army Medical Corps v Wivenhoe, 1952 89 Wivenhoe v Abberton, 1960 92 Wivenhoe v Great Bentley, 1983 112 Wivenhoe v Clacton Ramblers, 1987 128 Cressing v Wivenhoe, 1988 130 Wivenhoe v Essex Second Eleven, 1990 137 Wivenhoe v Boxted, 2004 148 ix Acknowledgements The author gratefully records his thanks to a large number of people without whom this project would simply have stumbled and fallen. First, thanks to my informal management team, consisting of Tony Forsgate, Sue Halsey, John Stacey, Peter Bather, Mike Lucking and Nik Lucking, each of whom brought a special skill to this endeavour; to the friends of Wivenhoe cricket who have generously helped to fund the enterprise; to the committee of Wivenhoe Town Cricket Club, particu- larly Simon Lucking and Gerry Dunstan; to the people who encouraged me to get started, such as Mark Britton, Steve Tasker, Dave Craze and all the retired players and officers assembled by Sue Halsey in the spring of 2010; to club archivists from all around Essex and Suffolk who found many of the missing match stats; to Richard Wilby for wading through hundreds of old scorebooks with me. Thanks to cricket writer David Frith, my good friend and for many years my fellow slip fielder at Guildford who found time, whenever I asked, to give me advice and dig out old pictures. He also pointed me in the direction of the libraries at Lord’s and at the Melbourne Cricket Ground where globe-trotting librarian Neil Robinson helped me on both occasions. Thanks to the writers of the most valuable of the books, magazines and papers I consulted, who were Richard Cooper, The Gentleman Cricketers of Maldon, David Lemmon and Mike Marshall, The Official History of Essex County Cricket Club, Bill Loveless, Destiny Delayed, David Frith, Pageant of Cricket, Anthony Meredith, The Demon and the Lobster, Paul Thompson, Sea Change, Wivenhoe Remembered, George Dewar, Memoirs of Sir Claude Champion de Crespigny, Dick Barton, Wivenhoe; to the many authors of The Cricketer magazine and Wisden Cricketers Almanack, and particularly to Nicholas Butler, The Story of Wivenhoe, whose meticulously quoted references are world class. Thanks also to the providers of those remarkable web-based instant research resources Cricinfo and Cricket Archive. Special gratitude is extended to the local historians of Wivenhoe, particularly Peter Kay, Pat Marsden, Glendower Jackson and John Stewart, whose old photographs, maps and knowledge were freely given; to the staff of Wivenhoe Town Council for more maps and xi THE STORY OF WIVENHOE CRICKET advice; to the staff of Colchester Library and the Essex Records Office at Chelmsford. Other good people who have helped in many different ways are as follows, and to each of them my grateful thanks: Roger Bacon, Andy Buckley, Paul Coverley, David Craze, Don Curtis, Gill Denny, Len Drinkell, Ian and Jenny Durrell, Jimmy Dutton, Paul Evans, Ian Evans, Phillipe Faucheux, Alan Foster, Graham Francis, Brian French, Ernie Frost, Nick Garnham, Andrew Golding, Simon Green, Richard Hemstedt, Kevin Hewes, John and Jessie Holden, Nigel Howlett, Glendower Jackson, Arfon and Lindsay Jones, Bill Kempster, Mick Kettle, Gerry Lucking, Robin Mills, Fred Minikin, Peter Napper, Geoff Newman, Pat Patel, Mel Phair, Nigel and Terri Philp, Chris Punchard, Brian Richardson, Ian Robinson, Charlie Scofield, Mark Shuttleworth, Kevin Sparling, John Stuck, David Studham, Malcolm Turner, Ray Watsham, Graham Wheeler, Richard Whiteside, Bill Wilson and Clive Woods. Finally, the greatest thanks of all must be to my family who, by their unfaltering patience in putting up with me “going on about it all the time”, have all reluctantly become experts on the history of Wivenhoe cricket.