'HAIG' NEWS (edited by Tom Scanlon)
The article below appeared in this
month's issue in the section dealing with the National Village Championship. Brian
Davenport, in his capacity as archivist for Brook CC came across the transcript
of a letter which "Mike" Gauntlett had
prepared and presumably submitted in reply. Sadly it was never published.
Slinfold and Chiddingfold
David
Bennett writes of two ancient clubs
Two clubs, Slinfold and Chiddingfold,
separated by the Sussex-Surrey border, have both entered for this year's Haig for the second time still not knowing much about the
competition. Last season Slinfold were knocked out by
Findon at the end of April, while Chiddingfold,
owing to May's rain and a certain lack of liaison over dates, conceded their
match with Bisley. Slinfold
is the elder by eighty-six years.
Their first match was
played in 1775 against Rudgwick on Broadbridge Heath common, and as in their first attempt at Haig cricket, Slinfold were
beaten. Although records are somewhat sketchy from then, Slinfold
have been playing regularly since; there is evidence of the team travelling by
horse and trap to away venues. Slinfold Cricket Club owe much to the Stanford family (all of whom were village
products) who were virtually
the team between the wars.
William (or 'Barge',
as he was known) had six cricket-loving sons, one of whom (Basil) still plays
for Slinfold.
The club's most famous
player was David Sheppard, whose parents moved to the village when he was a
youngster. Although he never played regularly, Sheppard has obviously had the
club at heart, as was shown when he bought a Sussex XI to Slinfold
in the 'fifties to help raise money for a new roller. Before he became Bishop
of Woolwich there was a regular fixture between Slinfold
and the Mayflower Centre.
July 14, 1962 was a
red-letter day in the club's history, when David Sheppard, then in the running
for the MCC captaincy to Australia, played in a match before opening their
pavilion. The pavilion was an old tote hut from Lingfield
Racecourse, spotted by the club's Iynchpin, 'Johnny'
Johnson, and bought by the club for £200. Johnson, another village product, has
played for the club since 1936, captaining them between 1954 and 1972. He is
now their groundsman and fixture secretary.
For success this year,
Slinfold will no doubt be hoping that John Commerford, a former Bedfordshire player, will be available
and that Roger Peay (who last year became the first club
player to score 1000 runs in a season), Bobby Morris and their ace bowler, Tony
Cook, will find form quickly.
Chiddingfold also had to travel
for their first match when they met Godalming at Broadwater (Surrey) in 1861. Twenty-four years later,
their scorer, Alfred Hoar, was being dubbed as 'having the makings of a first
class cricketer'. This was soon shown when two years later he took four wickets
in four balls against MCC, which earned him thirty shillings from the
spectators.
From 1890 until the
Second World War there were two clubs in the village following the formation of
an 'upper-class club' - Sidenhurst. After the First
War, Chiddingfold Cricket Club became the Chiddingfold Working Man's Cricket Club following the gift
of a ground to help ex-service people by Sir Harry Vectar,
a German who obviously had misgivings about war.
Sidenhurst lost their ground
during the Second War and renamed themselves Sidenhurst Ramblers, which prompted Chiddingfold
to revert to their original name.
Two senior citizens of
the village, Tom Hammond, a former player, who umpired until he was eighty, and
Frank Mitchell, who scored the first hundred at Chiddingfold,
still follow the club's fortunes. In local circles Chiddingfold
hold a record unlikely to be beaten - scoring 222 for 0 off 16 eight-ball overs in Surrey's evening knockout competition in 1965.
By the time this is
read, both sides will have played a Haig match. Both
are away, Slinfold at Anstye
and Chiddingfold at Blackheath, on the first leg of
their hoped-for long journey to Lord's.
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There are certain mis-statements
in Ton Scanlon's report of the two Chiddingfold Clubs
in the June edition.
First of all what
he describes as the "upper class" Sydenhurst
Club. Sydenhurst is spelt "SYD" not
"SID" and was in fact a Country House side. The ground was part of
the Sydenhurst House grounds and was maintained by
the staff of the owners of the house - the Ramsdens
and later the Booths. It is true that after the first world
war it changed its name to the Chiddingfold
Cricket Club and Sir Harry Vector gave the ground in the village which still
exists, and this was called the Chiddingfold Working
Men's Cricket Club. Sydenhurst did lose their ground
during the second world war - it simply was impossible
to carry on as the ground is some distance from the village and the house had
been sold to the Hungarian Embassy as a week-end retreat. It was retained at this
sale and offered to the club but at a meeting it was proved how impossible it
would be to maintain it. The writer had been the last Captain before the war
and offered to run it as a Rambling Club until such time as we could go back
but no-one really believed that this would ever be possible - and so it has
proved - but that the Ramblers side has gone from strength to strength as the
enclosed Fixture Card shows, and plays a much higher standard of cricket than
the original Sydenhurst, later Chiddingfold,
club.