150 Years of Cricket as set out in the Souvenir Programme produced for the 150th anniversay

Most experts agree that cricket was invented during Saxon or Norman times by children living in the Weald in the Southeast of England. The first reference to cricket being played as an adult sport was in 1611 and, in the same year, a dictionary defined cricket as a boys' game. In 1744 the first Laws of Cricket were written, then  amended in 1774 when innovations such as being given out Leg Before Wicket, a 3rd (middle) stump and a maximum bat width of 4¼ inches were added.
                                     
The first reference to cricket in Berkhamsted dates to 1819 and the Whitsun Fair on “the Common”, which would probably have been the flat ground in front of what is now Berkhamsted Golf Club’s clubhouse.A poster stated, “Cricketing as usual, wickets pitched at 11 o’clock”, meaning that by this date cricket on Berkhamsted Common was a regular occurrence. Records of early cricket in Tring include two fixtures with Berkhamsted played in 1835, in Tring Park and then on Berkhamsted Common. 

   
The earliest newspaper report of a game was in 1840 when it was reported that a “return match between Berkhamsted and Markyate cricket clubs” was to be played. As the sport of cricket gained in popularity within Berkhamsted, regular matches at Ashlyns Hall, Haresfoot, Berkhamsted Castle and Butts Meadow are all on record. In 1870 a meeting was held to establish Berkhamsted Cricket Club, and in the July an inaugural match was held between Married and Single players. After a gradual increase of members and finances, a ‘full’ list of seven fixtures was published in 1875 and the countdown to our 150th anniversary began!

Berkhamsted Cricket Club (BCC) established itself alongside other early teams in the town, such as the School, the Brewery and the Mechanics’ Institute. The sports ground in Lower Kings Road took many years to become fit for play, created as it was by the earth spoil from the digging of Northchurch Tunnel on the nearby railway line. The sporting venue was then shared for many years between Berkhamsted School, who funded the building of the first pavilion there in 1885, and BCC. Eventually, in 1915, the School acquired their current sports grounds at the top of Chesham Road and the Lower Kings Road setting continued as a shared site between BCC and “The Comrades” Football Club.

Berkhamsted Hockey Club rented their own use of the sports ground from after World War I, right through until they moved in 1957 to their purpose-built ground at the Cow Roast, Dudswell.The pavilion was then completely rebuilt in 1937, remaining in use for cricket until the Club moved in 1984 to their current home in Kitchener’s Field. They thus became neighbours of the Coopers (and then Wellcome) Cricket Club which had played there for many decades. That ground had been used to host some of the legendary fixtures played between Berkhamsted CC and touring international teams, starting with the West Indians in 1906 and followed by further matches against them in 1928 & 1933, as well as games against New Zealand and then All India.Upon the death of Earl Brownlow in 1921, the entire Ashridge estate including the Lower Kings Roadsports ground was put up for sale. A public appeal to raise funds began, whereupon the Berkhamsted Sports Ground Association was founded and became owner of the ground and facilities at Lower Kings Road. A number of BCC members servedfor many years supporting the Association, including in recent times: Dennis Atkins, Steve James, Richard Wilding, Bernard Smith and Colin Buckle, with Tim Buckley and Michael Atkins the current representatives. The BSG Charitable Association has been,and continues to be, an avid supporter of all its members’clubs. Its contribution has beeninvaluable to BCC’s longevity, and we use the opportunity of our 150th anniversary to mark alasting gratitude.

Readers of this Souvenir Programme may have enjoyed playing cricket at Lower Kings Road in their youth, forming part of the succession of youngsters known as “ Bertie’s Boys “. Strong cricketing links have alwaysbeen in place between BCC and Berkhamsted School, on their respective fixture lists and through teachers & pupils playing regularly and with great success for the town Club. Similar links then developed with Ashlyns School from its inception in 1951. Bonds of cricketing friendship and friendly rivalry have also endured with many local cricket clubs: Northchurch, Bourne End, Hemel Hempstead and Tring Park are probably uppermost in this regard.

The Club’s former Chairman, Dennis Atkins, masterminded the enormous project which led toBCC’s move to Kitchener’s Field in 1984. Now aged 93, Dennis made his playing debut for Berkhamsted in 1944 and remembers the team travelling to and from away matches in a horse & cart on occasion, or else catching the train together from Berkhamsted station. With Jim Harrowell as the Club’s President and former player, and Dennis as his partner in the local solicitors’ practice that bore their names, the Club was in safe hands as its fortunes gradually increased through the 1960s. 

Steered by the shrewd captaincy of Colin Meager and with fast bowler Brian Collins always in the wickets, Berkhamsted won the Herts Competition twice (in 1969 and 1971) and then the Hertfordshire Cricket League in its inaugural season of 1974. Alongside regular victories in the local 20-over Gazette Cup competition, plus the Aylesbury & District Midweek League, BCC’s trophy cabinet has a lot of history to celebrate in this 150th Anniversary.

Looking beyond Berkhamsted’s boundaries for a moment, BCC developed a taste for an occasional cricket tour. This occurred first in the late 1950s, toSomerset and Gloucestershire. In its centenary season of 1975, BCC followed the example of Berkhamsted School and went on tour to Deventer in Holland, plus a separate tour to Cheltenham, and a cricket week in Berkhamsted for good measure!Subsequent tour destinations have included Sussex, Somerset, Barbados and nostalgic returns to Gloucestershire and the Netherlands. More recently the Club has toured Somerset and Dorset.

As well as the increasing organisation of a juniors’ section from the 1970s onwards, it can be noted that BCC had close ties with the Women’s Cricket Association as early as 1930, with matches played regularly in the town. The inclusion of a second pitch at Kitchener’s Field led to the local women’s team, Vagabonds CC,playing regularly at Berkhamsted led by inspirational local teacher and England Test player Jacqui Wainwright. While that Club eventually lived up to its name and moved on elsewhere, Berkhamsted CC’s own women’s team has come into being under the guidance first of Emma Potts and now her daughter Jess. Moving steadily up the Leagues, the women are now playing at the highest available Club level and plan to introduce a 2nd XI in this Anniversary year. 

BCC’s co-location off Castle Hill with the Wellcome Sports & Social Club led to an agreed amalgamation in the 1990s. This helped to strengthen the Club’s reach within the town and alsoushered the youngsters of theRaiders Football Club into the Kitchener’s Field fold. However, several challenging years balancing the books and developing the newClub’s constitution had to be endured and worked through. 

The current growth of the Club and its widespread success on thepitch during 2024 make the finest note upon which to look forwards. Berkhamsted Cricket Club as it stands today can reflect upon 150years of sporting endeavour, sociability and regular success, plus the mutual support of and itself. It has managed down the years to embrace Sunday cricket, League cricket, 20-over cricket, Women’s cricket, Juniors’ cricket and has many more plans to expand in the future. The Club is open for the whole town to enjoy on evenings and weekends, especially its highly sociable #FamilyFridays, making it a true community club for you the readers to share in! 

100 Years of Cricket by H.E.Todd (as prepared for the 100th anniversary programme)

Think of it – one hundred unbroken years of cricket in Berkhamsted. It is a sobering thought! And the writer is even more sobered by the thought that he has played every season for the Club for nearly half of its history – to be precise for forty six consecutive seasons! Admittedly his more recent appearance is dignified by the term “played”, but he did turn up once in white flannels for the Third Eleven last season. (They were very short on the day!) and he did actually stagger to the wicket to make one run, though a veil should be drawn over his antics in the field. 

Actually to call 1975 the Centenary Year of the Berkhamsted Cricket Club is a conservative estimate. As early as 1819 wickets were pitched for a Married vs Single game in the town, and the Mechanics Institute organised a similar encounter for several years from 1867 onwards in the Castle Grounds – and what a beautiful setting that must have been. Odd games about that time were played by Berkhamsted School and teams like the Berkhamsted Brewery and the Berkhamsted Foot Beaglers, but it was not until 1875 that a real fixture list of seven matches was published by the Town Club in the local press, and by the 1880s a full programme against many of our present day opponents was regularly embarked upon.

Comments in the press show that club playing and organisation problems have not changed. In 1892 playing away against Chipperfield “The fielding of the visitors in some degree accounted for their heavy defeat”. Centenary season captains please note! In 1905, against West Herts “White was given out lbw and a very doubtful decision it appeared to be from the attitude of several of the players”. Naughty! Naughty! “We cannot undertake to insert matches unless they are properly written on one side of the paper, and they must reach this office not later than Thursday morning”, Secretary please note, but for Thursday read Monday!

And, again in 1905, after the first match for the season against Wolverton “It may be especially urged at the commencement of the season that the prolonged interval, the arbitrary adjournment for refreshment, and the early drawing of the stumps will not tempt an increasing number of spectators to come and see the play”, perhaps the beauty of the ladies doing teas was responsible for the prolonged interval. Bless them, they are still doing teas, and are still as beautiful as ever. What would be have done without them over all these years?

Umpires were as vulnerable as ever, even in 1927! “A curious incident was that Cowleys’s first two overs both comprised seven deliveries. The seventh ball of his first over was no-balled by umpire Bass, and the seventh ball of the seventh over bowled Stone. It was a straight delivery which Stone said he did not see as a train was passing by his line of sight”. In those days the wickets on the Town Ground were pitched from canal to railway, and the trees along the railway side were much smaller. Obviously this encouraged local guile, and Jack Cowley had some!

The present Town ground has been used since before the beginning of the Century, it was shared with Berkhamsted School until 1915, when the school moved up the hill, and later the Institute used it on Sundays and the Hockey Club during their winter season. The Institute merged with the Town after the Second World War, and some excellent players were inherited, including the Waller brothers – one of whom played for the County and the other became Captain of the Club, and also our much loved President Jim Harrowell. The old pavilion on stilts was replaced in 1937 with the present building, which is constantly being altered and redecorated. At present members are busily engaged in making it smart for our Centenary season.

With the advent of the Wanderer eleven – later to be called Third eleven, the junior team always played away until, for a time, the School ground was kindly lent during the holidays and, more recently, excellent wickets have been made available at the Cow Roast, through co-operations with the Hockey Club.

Links with the past are still firm with some of our older spectators, Walter Brinklow, who umpired back in the 1920s is a regular attender on the ground, and he is able to compare present day form with the tearaway bowling of Tally Morgan who first played in the 1890s and signed his last minutes as Chairman in 1951. The writer took over the captaincy in 1937 from delightful Jack Cowley, who was already vice-captain in 1911 and making runs and taking wickets in his elegant way.

Like all local clubs, we have had our ups and downs. During one vintage period between 1923/33 we were lucky enough to have some excellent players and also a Chairman who was an MCC administrator. The result was that we were privileged to play mid-week matches against touring International teams – the West Indies three times, New Zealand and India. After that for a period, though excellently administered on the Max Crispin era, the results were less impressive, and they reached their nadir when the writer was Captain! Oh, those regular resounding defeats by Chesham!

The main aim of this article, however, is to bring an earlier published history up to date, and to concentrate on the last ten years, which have been some of the most successful the Club has known. It is a happy thought that we enter our hundredth year as winners in the 1974 Herts League, which included all the senior clubs in the County. Indeed, we can surely claim over recent years to be the most consistently successful club in the County, for we also won the Hertfordshire Competition in our first year of entry in 1969, were again champions in 1971, and in all other years have been well to the top of the table. And amongst more local clubs the Gazette Cup, which included the hazard of strong village and works teams who are apt to spring surprises, has been won five times since 1966.

On looking through the results over this decade the outstanding impression is that so many matches were actually won. Of course some were lost as well – though few in comparison – but very few were drawn unless weather interfered. Ken Burling, one of the most aggressively elegant batsman who has been seen on the ground, was skipper from 1965 – 1968. In 1965 Denis Atkins, Bob Walker, Dave Wilson, Denis Beard and Norman Warren were making the runs, and Brian Collins was already taking wickets. 1966 was another excellent season with variety given to the bowling by Cook, and by 1967 Barry Keeling and Bob Niven were adding youth and style to batting an              d bowling. In 1968 the Collins/Buckle opening attack caused havoc, as it has done many times in later seasons. Brian was chosen for the County, John Davies showed class whenever he played, and Laurie Thompson arrived to give ballast in more ways than one.