A Lifetime in Cricket (Part Five)

In part four of "A Lifetime In Cricket" I began recalling memorable opponents and quirky incidents that occurred in local cricket, which is the epitome of the game. I started with Kilmington and All Saints and will now continue with other local teams and then move on to those further afield.

CHARDSTOCK CRICKET CLUB – a beautiful picturesque village ground overlooking the Burridge Valley. However, there are a couple of drawbacks. In the early days when I first played there, the company of "Barbers" carried out a meat waste business – and the smell wafting across the cricket field from the burning carcasses was something else.

The field is also on a severe incline, which makes batting, bowling and fielding somewhat difficult and often hazardous.

Axminster Cricket Club had two brothers playing some years ago – Gareth and Glyn Woodward. Gareth was an excellent young bowler who put in some good performances. Glyn was tall, well built and a fast runner, but not particularly well co-ordinated. Glyn was fielding on the edge of the square, when a good cover drive from a Chardstock batsman whistled past him – and he chased after the ball down the slope. As Glyn gathered speed, so the ball travelled even faster and reached the boundary straight into the compost heap at the bottom of the ground. Glyn couldn't catch the ball, but he couldn't stop and ended up head-first in the compost – and it was a rather smelly Glyn Woodward who we extricated from the compost heap!

Frank Huddy - a great character at Chardstock CC

You couldn't mention Chardstock Cricket Club in days gone by without recalling the great Frank Huddy, always known as FR. (Chardstock CC had a trait for naming their players by their first initials, eg F R Huddy, B J Hutchings, etc).

Frank Huddy was captain of Chardstock CC for nearly 20 years – but he was also a character – great historian, band leader of the Tony Graham Combo and he had a successful agency for bands, concert acts, etc. But in cricketing circles he was renowned for his dour batting – a real barnacle! It was impossible to remove him.

Two cricketers from Chardstock I remember well were Barry Hutchings and Dick Parris. I played youth football in the same team as both of them – so they were good friends and fine cricketers. I also recall Richard Drewer, the Strawbridge brothers, the Hunt brothers, Terry Turner, Pete Bindon, Pete Beviss and Frank's son Wes Huddy. I am also old enough to remember stalwarts from the old days – Donald Goff and John Pratt (who both played for Axminster). Michael Eames was a good cricketer - president of Chardstock CC for many years and was then followed in that role by the renowned violinist and orchestra conductor, the late Sir Neville Marriner, who lived not too far away from the ground.

UPLYME and LYME REGIS CRICKET CLUB was well-known by me when I was knee-high to a grasshopper. As a family, on a fine summer day, we would set off, heading for a day on the beach at Lyme Regis. As we dropped down the hill approaching Uplyme, my father would say "Look – there's some cricket going on at Uplyme – let's pull in and watch a few overs".

Well – a few overs meant the rest of the day at the cricket and we never reached the beach at Lyme. That didn't bother me, as I loved whacking a tennis ball on the outfield. I hated the water and because we never reached the sea at Lyme Regis, I never learned to swim. I put that down to Uplyme and Lyme Regis cricket club. (You'll be pleased to know that I eventually learned to swim, as an adult, together with my children). I believe that story highlights the superb visibility of the cricket ground at Uplyme – an absolute picture.

Axminster had some fine tussles with Uplyme, who were very much a team of families. There was Bob Mason and his son Andrew, Martin and Rodney Rowe, Brian and Steve Rattenbury, Ted Denham and his sons, Michael and John (all superb batsmen) and Jim McMurtry (the club umpire) and his son Ian.

I also remember Arthur Larcombe – a canny bowler, Chris Sweetland – an aggressive wicket-keeper, Derek Wellman – the Axminster postman and fine batsman, Mike Spearpoint – a clever bowler and John Stamp (Stomper) – one of local cricket's characters.

Philip Evans recalls an occasion when Axminster played against Uplyme with Terry Guppy bowling for Axminster and John Stamp batting for Uplyme. I'm not sure what happened (Philip Evans may be able to elaborate?) but punches were exchanged between the two of them which was rather ironic – as they were cousins!

I cannot complete my recollection of Uplyme without mentioning two cricketers who put Uplyme and Lyme Regis Cricket Club on the map – Dennis Applebee and Philip Evans. Dennis Applebee was a Londoner, who moved down to Dorset in the 1980s to run a hotel in Lyme Regis. He was a more than useful bowler, but his legacy with Uplyme and Lyme Regis CC was as an organiser, who "got things done". He promoted a number of benefit matches with Somerset CCC, arranged a match against the Cross Arrows on the Nursery Ground at Lords to celebrate the club's 100th anniversary and ran countless fund-raising activities for the club, including extremely popular "Gentleman's Evenings" in Lyme Regis.

Philip (Pip) Evans MBE, former Mayor of Lyme Regis, community fund-raiser and renowned journalist. Pip would be the first to admit that although he had some excellent performances and loved the game, he never really achieved his greatest cricketing ambitions – and probably spent more time playing second-team cricket than for the first XI.

However, in similar mode to Dennis Applebee, Uplyme and Lyme Regis Cricket Club would never have reached its status in local cricket without his endeavours. He was chairman of the club for a number of years and ran a Festival of Sport, involving a host of stars from the world of sport, which helped to raise funds for the building of a new pavilion. Philip was a first-class partner to Dennis Applebee in running countless fund-raising events for the club and so many other good causes, where his journalistic skills were so vital to the success of those occasions.

SEATON CRICKET CLUB – another ancient "enemy" of Axminster Town Cricket Club. The clubs have probably been playing cricket against each other since they were first formed, back in the 19th century.

For those of us at Axminster, the match against Seaton was "the big one". We usually appeared to come off second best, so on those occasions when we ran out winners, the beer at the end of the game tasted even better.

The Court Lane pitch is one of the best in the area and for years it was majestically manicured by groundsman Peter Anderson, who formerly played cricket for Devon before he joined Seaton in the 1980s. Peter was chief executive at Somerset CCC for 16 years and achieved great things for the First Class County. But Peter enjoyed nothing more, when away from the first class scene at Taunton than preparing wickets for his beloved Seaton Cricket Club, where he has worked as manager, fixtures secretary and youth team coach – as well as groundsman.

Seaton has maintained a string of fine players over the years – Norman Humphries, Harry Parr and Bob Staddon were stalwarts in the fifties and sixties and all played for Devon County Cricket Club. When I first played against Seaton, I remember Bob Collier (another farmer who had to disappear at milking time), Simon Wright, Geoff Humphries, Pop Cornish (hard hitting batsman from Colyton) John Harding and John Wheeler.

However, in the late seventies, the club's fortunes were transformed when former England fast bowler, Bob Cottam moved to the area to run cricket at Allhallows School at Rousdon. He soon joined Seaton Cricket Club where he played for the club and ran their coaching activities. He rarely bowled off his full run-up but particulaly enjoyed his batting for Seaton. His three sons, Mike, Dave and Andy, were all fine cricketers, who performed well for Seaton, with Andy ultimately playing first class cricket for Derbyshire and Somerset. The last I heard of Andy Cottam, he was a high performance cricket coach in Indonesia.

My first memories of visiting a local cricket club was a trip to BRIDPORT, which would be my first effort as a young scorer for Axminster. The Bridport Cricket Club ground was a stone's throw away from Palmer's Brewery and when the wind was in a certain direction, the smell of hops brewing was quite intoxicating. I will always remember that first game when I scored – Axminster, who had a useful team were skittled out for 32, with the wickets being taken by Derek Gale and a Malcolm Brake.

Vernon's Veterans

Derek Gale took masses of wickets for Bridport, who also included in that match a certain Mr Vernon Payne. Vernon was renowned for gathering a team of veterans to play annual matches against local teams – I remember my father playing for "Vernon's Veterans".

Apart from the beery smell wafting across the field, one of the features of the Bridport ground was the lengthy walk for batsmen from the pavilion to the wicket – and back again, particularly if you had managed to get out early in your innings. I certainly remember trudging back to the pavilion, for what seemed an eternity, after getting a "golden duck".

I believe that Bridport Cricket Club pulled out of the Dorset League in 2015 – which is a great shame as a few stalwarts had tried to keep things ticking over. One of those stalwarts was Geoff Kitton, a lovely man and useful cricketer. Geoff had a great knowledge of the game and was known to former Axminster players as "Pussy Cat" Kitton, for obvious reasons. I also remember Barry Bush, a fairly rapid fast bowler, although not a tall man, and Ken Hosking – an accumulator of many runs. For endless years the Bridport umpire was Henry Gillingham, another cricket gentleman.

A short distance from Bridport is BEAMINSTER whose cricket club always seemed to have the ascendancy over their Dorset neighbours – and still play in one of the senior Dorset Leagues. From years gone by, I remember four excellent cricketers – Brian Newbery, Jimmy Watts, Maurice Hannam and John Swingler. Beaminster were a fine batting side, with Hannam, Watts and Newbery usually batting one, two and three.