Hampshire Cricket History

Apparently the ECB have just sealed a four-year deal with new sponsors for the four-day stuff – SPECSAVERS

(This is particularly appropriate, because in four year’s time you’ll need glasses to spot the Championship fixtures).

I don’t think I misheard or misunderstood the discussion at the Committee but Sarah, who is now in charge of membership (Will has gone), has provided me with clearer information, as follows:

“We have around 250 junior Members all together, 80 of which are paid and the rest made up of Kids Go Free. The KFG Memberships are eligible to any child under the age of 17 who resides at the same address as any full paying adult Member. We then also have members who are part of the county and regional performance squads who have Membership on top of this”.

This is better of course, although to repeat in 1964 we had nearly 800 (of nearly 6,000 members) without any of those ‘deals’ – and as you guys are saying, for many of us, Junior Membership was the start of something significant

It’s the question of the moment of course and I do not propose to get political on here, but reading something about football in the Observer this morning it struck me that all those ‘Europeans’ like Nic Pothas (Greek) and Gareth Berg (Italy) will lose their eligibility if we ‘Brexit’.

I’ve brought home the club’s published list of Members from 1964 and there I am as a (J) which means Junior Member. At that last Committee meeting we were told that current membership stands at about 3,000 but with hardly more than 50 junior members (Zooters). I was rather astonished by that, so I decided to check some records. This is just a start but my overall estimated count is about 5,650 members and almost 800 Junior members, which is 15%, whereas this year it is less than 2%. Why do we think that might be? (Incidentally, should you be there? Ask me and I’ll check but it will help if you give me an idea of which of the 20 areas you lived).

I showed you the front page, full of adverts, but here’s why the ‘paper is so special:

… that history is just one damn thing after another, but (see previous post) I find that is rather more true of the present, these days. For example the Guardian carries the report of today’s meeting of the County Chief Execs to discuss splitting the T20 into two divisions with promotion and relegation and (therefore) two more matches every year

Thinking back to last year’s PCA Survey, I reckon the players won’t like that:

(a) because it’s two more days cricket, when they want fewer and

(b) because it wrecks the regional nature of the qualifying rounds and will almost certainly mean more travelling. For example, Hampshire could well end up in a division with all or some of Derbyshire, Durham, Lancashire, Notts, Yorkshire etc whereas at present they go no further than Cardiff and Canterbury

The answer (of course) is in the other item on the agenda, which is cutting two games (eight days) from the Championship each year. Now you’d think that since the PCA Survey reported that by far the majority of players regard the Championship as the premier competition that they might object. But they haven’t.

I wonder why.

PS Here’s the different world into which I was born but which is slipping away (incidentally the practice batsman facing Bert Rhodes is Hampshire’s pre-war amateur Ronnie Aird, by then Secretary of the MCC and the two coaches wearing Hampshire caps at the end are the great coach Arthur Holt and their 1940s batsman Gilbert Dawson)

I try to live in the present while relishing history and memories. I do know some cricket historians who have given up on what happens today but  I’m not quite there yet.

However, as Jo suggests, when I spend a day like yesterday sorting out the past there is a kind of ‘switch’ which turns on the magic. I’ll share some of the things I found with you – here, for example, is perhaps my favourite newspaper edition ever:

The Archive early this morning

Mrs A and Bob Murrell get to grips with packs from Ikea

And Hey Presto! By 5pm this evening …

(actually there is more to be done but it’s improving)

Incidentally bottom left are rows of scrapbooks, full of press cuttings from the late 1960s to the early 1990s – a legacy from some years ago and never before released from plastic box captivity!

The Handbook is printed but not yet available because there’s a (T20) name in this year’s player profiles that is yet to be announced and I’m sworn to secrecy.

However, that name is not Shahid Afridi who is returning, so maybe my man won’t come …

I’m off to the Bowl today so will try to discover more. It won’t be the first time I’ve included a player (or not) who hasn’t turned up (or did)!