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Village cricket grounds

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The Voice Of Reason

The Voice Of Reason

Heaven Branch
Lad at work plays in a proper village team Rippon way, he reckons one ground the boundary is over a road you need to look both ways before ganin after the ball. How class is that.

Any other stories
 

I played a game at Coln Valley CC this season (in the Cotswolds) and the only way to get from the road (if you can call it that) to the car park was by driving across the outfield. It was the first (and only) time I had been able to say I had managed a perfectly executed drive to the boundary.

Got to love village cricket!
 
The club I used to play for go on tour to a little village called Nowton, near Bury St Edmunds. The bar opens at 3pm on the Friday afternoon and doesn't close again until 11pm on the Monday night when the tour ends. Now that's what I call a cricket club!! :-D
 
chelt_mackem said:
I played a game at Coln Valley CC this season (in the Cotswolds) and the only way to get from the road (if you can call it that) to the car park was by driving across the outfield. It was the first (and only) time I had been able to say I had managed a perfectly executed drive to the boundary.

Got to love village cricket!
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Class
 
AlpineExile said:
Which ground has a tree growing in it, and special rules as to what happens if a ball goes into it?
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There's a couple I think. Canterbury is probably the one you're on about, but it was 'stumped' so to speak in 2005......

Nicked from Twitter -

Cricket grounds in most parts of the world are devoid of any trees or shrubs. The lime tree at the St Lawrence Ground was an exception: the ground opened as the Beverley ground in 1847, and was built around the tree.

The presence of a tree within the playing area required special local rules. Shots blocked by the tree were counted as a four. Only four cricketers have cleared the tree to score a six: Arthur 'Jacko' Watson of Sussex in 1925, the West Indies' Learie Constantine (1928), Middlesex's Jim Smith (1939), and Carl Hooper (1992).1

The tree was diagnosed with heartwood fungus in the 1990s, and it was pollarded to encourage new growth, reducing it from over 120 feet to around 90 feet in height. Finally, high winds in England on 7 January 2005 caused the 200 year-old tree snap in two, leaving a 7-foot stump. Wood from the dead tree will be made into mementos that will be sold to supporters.

A new lime tree was planted outside of the playing area in 1999 by EW Swanton, in preparation for the ultimate demise of its predecessor.[1] The club moved it within the playing area on 8 March 2005, although it was still less than 6 feet high.
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Call me Statto marra ;)
 
Chorleywood in Bucks.

Coudn't bowl from one end. Mid off / on would need to be on the main road! Mind you, some would say I simply shouldn't bowl!

Shotley always sticks in my mind as a nice ground, if you survived the midgies!
 
The Voice Of Reason said:
Lad at work plays in a proper village team Rippon way, he reckons one ground the boundary is over a road you need to look both ways before ganin after the ball. How class is that.

Any other stories
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Is it this one at Thornton Watlass ?

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At nearby Crakehall the graveyard wall takes a chunk out of what would be the outfield, from square leg down to fine leg, sometimes its only 25 yards from the wicket
 
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once played at a ground,elvaston castle i think where you couldnt hit a 4 on one side of the wicket because the boundry was so short given 2 instead!!.
 
short leg said:
once played at a ground,elvaston castle i think where you couldnt hit a 4 on one side of the wicket because the boundry was so short given 2 instead!!.
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I played a school match somewhere where that rule applied. You got 4 for a 6 if you see what I mean. Beautiful setting, glorious weather, I was out first ball :oops:

At Downe in Kent the pitch was so rutted I asked short leg if they didn't have a roller. "I think one of the lads has a Bentley" he quipped. How I laughed as the balls flew past my ears.
 
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I was driving back from stansted airport on Monday via a load of back roads and went through Hatfield heath and realised I was driving through the middle fo outfield along the road...

i'll see if I can google a pic
 
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