Time erases
the details of our lives in favour of something larger.
Philip Larkin
Hi everyone!
It is nearly 40
years since the last game that Dad & I watched together: Kent v Middlesex
at the Nevill, Tunbridge Wells on my 27th birthday in 1979.
In the previous 20
years we had been to so many, many games: from the Nevill to our beloved Hove, to
Canterbury and to Lords and the Oval.
Dad
in Spring 1973
Just as his son would come to do, Dad loved to tell ( and re-tell!!) the tales of a handful of his favourite Days at the Cricket.
Next season it will
be 70 years since two of Dad’s favourite stories: The 1948 Australians visits
to Hove to play Sussex and to Hastings to play the South of England.
More on these two
games in 2018, but for now suffice to say Don Bradman scored 100s in both
games.
Dad always said that in the Hove match The Don hit his first four balls
to the four corners of the pitch; and perhaps he did !!
Today I’d like to
tell you about another of Dad’s favourite games, one that took place exactly 80
years ago today:
Sussex v Kent at Priory
Meadow, Hastings on Saturday 7 August 1937.
Aunt Margaret had
packed the picnic: Margaret’s cheese scones were the best in the world and there was a Michel Roux
surprise meat pie (just joking, Lady Lambourne!!).
Light on the Salad;
obviously!
My Grandad Jack and my Dad caught the Dengates bus from Horns Cross.
It was widely rumoured that Pedestrians overtook Dengates Buses on Rye Hill ...
provided they didn’t asphyxiate on the
exhaust !
Down through Broad
Oak and Westfield and across the Ridge, they were dropped off at Hastings
station.
A few minutes later
they had walked down Havelock Road and taken their seats on the Castle side of the ground.
Sussex’s first game
at Hastings was way back in 1865, against local rivals Kent.
I know that Dad was
a regular visitor in the 1930s and after the war.
By the early 1950’s Mum & he (and in June 1952 me too) were living barely a mile away in Warrior Square, St Leonards.
As for the ground, built on land reclaimed from a natural harbour, it was still close to the sea.
As Gerald Brodribb wrote in Cricket at Hastings: "There cannot be a first class ground in any town, anywhere else, that's more centrally situated."
Overlooking Priory Meadow there was a mixture of Regency houses with their iconic wrought iron balconies and more ordinary B&Bs running up the hill from the Old Town towards the Castle.
By the early 1950’s Mum & he (and in June 1952 me too) were living barely a mile away in Warrior Square, St Leonards.
As for the ground, built on land reclaimed from a natural harbour, it was still close to the sea.
As Gerald Brodribb wrote in Cricket at Hastings: "There cannot be a first class ground in any town, anywhere else, that's more centrally situated."
Overlooking Priory Meadow there was a mixture of Regency houses with their iconic wrought iron balconies and more ordinary B&Bs running up the hill from the Old Town towards the Castle.
Looking at the
scorecard for the 1937 game, the great Frank Woolley and England wicketkeeper
Les Ames were in the Kent XI.
Woolley was aged 51
and in his final season of a career of 145 centuries and - the only
non-wicketkeeper ever to do so – over a 1,000 catches. Not to mention over
2,000 wickets!
Sussex had a strong
team too; they would go on to win by 10 wickets.
In their XI were
the two Langridge brothers, James and John (the only batsman to score at least 70 first class 100s and not play Test cricket), England fast bowler Maurice Tate (one
of only nine people ever to get a career double of 20,000 runs and 2,000
wickets) and Jim Parks Senior.
John Langridge and
Maurice Tate are in my Sussex All Time Dream XI.
As for Jim Parks, his obituary in Wisden said: “Jim was essentially a county player, immensely dependable, but lacking the touch of genius which marks the top class.”
Perhaps Wisden was a little understated for a career of 468 matches, over 21,000 runs (including 41 centuries), 850 wickets and 325 catches.
1937 was the Season of his Life for Jim Parks.
The backstory is
that in October 1936 Jim’s wife Irene had died of TB.
We all respond to Grief in our own way.
And in 1937 Jim
responded to Irene’s death by scoring 3,000 runs (including 10 centuries) and
taking over a 100 wickets; a world record which surely will never be beaten.
This year the
Sussex Cricket Museum published a wonderful book titled James H Parks and his
1937 World Record to which I am indebted in the writing of this blog.
One of Jim’s 10 centuries was at Hastings, watched by Grandad and Dad.
What a day’s
cricket it was.
The Cricketer
reported:
“Sussex batted the whole of the first day in beautiful weather. John Langridge (159) and Jim Parks (106) had a partnership of 225 for the first wicket in 2 ½ hours.
Sussex scored 552 in the day.”
“Sussex batted the whole of the first day in beautiful weather. John Langridge (159) and Jim Parks (106) had a partnership of 225 for the first wicket in 2 ½ hours.
Sussex scored 552 in the day.”
And more than 120 overs
bowled by Kent. No problem with over rates back in 1937.
A
gloriously sunny day, Sussex scoring lots of runs... and Aunt Margaret's cheese
scones. Just the perfect Day at the Cricket !!
Four decades after
the last telling of "When Sussex scored 550 in a day" I can still hear Dad saying
that it was one of the best days watching cricket he ever had.
And he would always
end by repeating what Jim Parks Senior said about Cricket:
Cricket's a game, son and a game to be enjoyed!
The Two Jims
Sadly, the Priory
Meadow is no more. Sussex played their last game there in 1989.
(It is not true that it is me five sun hats along resting me eye after lunch !!)
Today the old ground
houses a nondescript (and I’m being kind) shopping centre.
The only remaining sign
of the cricket is a bronze statue.
But as I think back
across the years to all the cricket I watched with Dad, well I hope you agree that:
“Memories,
even your most precious ones, fade surprisingly quickly.
But I don’t go along with that.
The memories I value most, I don’t ever see them fading.”
But I don’t go along with that.
The memories I value most, I don’t ever see them fading.”
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
----
We’re heading into
the last couple of furlongs of Season 2017.
OK, you can’t join
me for cricket at Hastings any more and I can't promise that Sussex will score over 550 runs in the day (though they surely will have done by the time I write the Blog !!), but there are still several games to be played at Hove.
Do join me if you can !!!
Do join me if you can !!!
After
all ….
Why read a Lord Ric Cricket Blog, when you can star in your own.
See you soon!!
Lord Ric of Beckley Furnace
Follow me on Twitter: LordRic52
PS
My
own favourite memory of cricket at Hastings is Sussex v Kent in July 1968.
Next
season will be the Golden Anniversary of travelling down on the train
from Tunbridge Wells to Hastings.
Five
of my Sussex All Time Dream XI were present:
John
Langridge, who had played in Dad’s tale 30 years before in 1938, was Umpiring.
Young
Jim himself, John Snow and Tony Greig.
And
as for the 5th?
I can do no more than repeat what Greigy wrote :
“Our 12th man was sent out to clear a runway of sorts so that Lord Ted could land his private plane.”
“Our 12th man was sent out to clear a runway of sorts so that Lord Ted could land his private plane.”
Can
it possibly be true?
Well ... next Season come to a Day at the Cricket with Lord Ric and I'll tell you REALLY what
happened on that Saturday long, long ago!!
