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One of the delights of being Hampshire’s (Hon) Archivist is that treasures come my way, for safe-keeping and handing on to my successors. These treasures include the autographs of Hampshire cricketers. When I watched Hampshire as a boy I collected autographs and fortunately kept some, but in recent years I’ve been building our collection. I made a brief visit to the Ageas Bowl yesterday evening (my wife is still hobbling on crutches like an injured bowler) and Tim Tremlett passed to me (and therefore to all of us) an old autograph book, found by a friend at Tim’s golf club. It’s from the 1920s and is mostly signed by friends of the owner but there is also the signature of Joe Beckett the English Heavyweight Boxing Champion in August 1922 and from the same month this collection of Hampshire’s side that beat Worcestershire at the county ground. Interestingly nine of the players also played in the famous match v Warwickshire two months earlier (15 all out and won). This side: Brown, Newman, Lawrie, Tennyson, Mead, Bowell, Kennedy, Altham, Day, Livsey and Boyes. Altham and Lawrie were amateurs, schooled respectively at Repton and Eton, Altham – youth coach and cricket historian – had played for Oxford University before the war and Lawrie had won his first ‘blue’ in 1922. Those two did not play against Warwickshire (McIntyre and Shirley instead). There are also the signatures of three Worcestershire players, Shorting, Preece and Higgins (who scored 118). It’s difficult to display these things at the ground but the Blog is a bonus.
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