Cricket

Westbury House Cricket Club, 1909. Colonel LeRoy Lewis (owner of Westbury House) in centre, his son on left, wife on right.

W. Blackman on right.

News article reporting the feat of W Blackman.

East Meon Cricket Club team in 1970.

Judy Brooks' illustration of cows causing mayhem during an East Meon cricket match.

Cricket team August 1926

A team in the 1990s, including Jane Sims, tea maker, at the very back, Bill Tyrwhitt Drake, back row second from left, Frank Wheeler, back row extreme right, Dominic Carney, front row right, Alan Blackman third from right, front.

Charity matches were played in the early years of the 21st century.

Photo by Chris Warren of another charity event.

East Meon Cricket team

Race night in Village Hall, fundraising for Cricket Club. Wilson Atkinson on R.

Cricket club poster

Back row, L to R. n.k., Richard Dampney, Martin James, d.k., Melvyn Dowlen. Simon Edsall, Rob Thorne. Front row, Jeff Wheeler, Geoff Blackman, Alasdair Wheeler, Peter Suart, Chris Warren.

Cricket team on tour in Chumleigh and scoreboard. Back row L to R, Richard Dampney, Melvyn, n.k., Rob Thorne, Peter Suart, Chris Warren. Front row, n.k., Alastair Wheeler, Jeff Wheeler, Simon Edsall, Alan Blackman.

Cricket in East Meon is almost as old as the game itself. There is reference to a match in1796 between a combined East Meon and Petersfield side and a combined Hambledon and Portsmouth side. Where cricket was played in the village in the 18th and 19th centuries and how enduring it was is not known, but it was clearly thriving at the end of the 19th century when in 1894 the Charity Commission approved a scheme for the exchange of a ’fuel and field garden allotment’ on Oxenbourne Down for the present cricket ground on land then known as Pill Meadow. The scheme laid down some some quite demanding rules including:

”(7) Persons of known profligate character, intoxicated persons, and beggars shall be excluded from the ground.” In 1958 a new scheme made the Parish Council trustees of the ground .

East Meon Cricket Club is a thriving enterprise whose every match is recorded. Click here for the club’s website, where you can find a summary of the history of EMCC..

The pictures on this page are from the past, and we would welcome more.

The Westbury House team caption suggests that it belongs in West Meon. The House is in East Meon ….

Date of coverage

1796 - 2014

Place

East Meon

Reference number

EM/0114

Accession number

2014-03-014

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