Memories of cricket in Bulmer from the 1960s

A match in progress on our Smeetham Hall Lane ground

The Bulmer cricket club was reformed in 1962, having lapsed for 6 or 7 years. Our cricket field was in Smeetham Hall Lane, a little meadow next to The Old Rectory, then the home of Captain Harvey. The site is now occupied by 5 large houses, one of them was called "Mid-On" until recent years. In earlier years Bulmer had played on what is now Coe’s Meadow. In truth the Smeetham Hall Road ground was a little on the small side for cricket, the boundary wasn't much further from the edge of the square than it was from wicket to wicket. Captain Harvey and his wife even gave us the use of their kitchen to prepare the cricket teas in, and we had a changing room across the lane in one of the old stables of the Dower House. We fixed up games with most of the local village clubs, including Gestingthorpe, Wickham St. Pauls and Twinstead. One match we hatched up was Bulmer Past v Bulmer Present. This was great fun, I remember bowling dolly drops to poor old Hazel Chinnery, then well in his seventies, in the hope that he might actually hit one!

Bulmer Past V Present. Back row :- Ken Raymond ; Tom Radley ; Tim Rhodes?; Colin Raymond ; Danny Rowe ; Jack Cornell ; Lawrence Coe ; John Willingham. Middle row :- Len Barrel ; Frank Steward (umpire) ; Arthur Day ; ? ; ? ; Gordon Rowe ; Tony (Sam) Sandford (behind Gordon) ; Mervyn Billiemore ; Peter Rowe. Front :- Mr Abbot (kept Bulmer Tye shop) ; Harold Bettinson ; Don Raymond ; Eric Martin ; Maurie Raymond ; Ted Willingham ; Ted Radley ; Hazel Chinnery. .

Below Cricket in Smeetham Hall Lane

My cousin Danny Rowe decided that a little liquid refreshment would add to our enjoyment, so he stocked the back of his old Bedford van with a supply of small bottles and did a roaring trade! Right, yours truly sampling refreshment from the mobile bar!

Playing Gestingthorpe I was bowling and the umpire was Lennie Martin from Gestingthorpe who was a little disabled and always sat on a shooting stick. Everyone liked Lennie, unlike some village umpires he was always strictly impartial. One ball hit the batsman on the pad, but I thought it was going wide, so didn’t appeal. The next delivery hit him plumb in front. “Howzat!”, Lennie’s finger came up “I’d have given him out last time boy, if you’d only asked! A great character. This reminds me of an earlier match when I was playing for Little Waldingfield against Cornard. They had a regular umpire whose decisions were, shall we say, helpful to his village. Again I was bowling and had got the batsman absolutely plumb in front. “Howzat”---- “not out”. I couldn’t help but comment…… “Well, I’ll go to the foot of our Stairs” (or words to that effect!) Long pause, and then up went his finger, out! This amused all my team mates no end! “You’ll have to try that again, might improve your averages! . ..

The last game I played for Bulmer was in 1966, a couple of years after Wendy and had I married and were living at West Bergholt. It was a somewhat inauspicious, but at the same time quite extraordinary match at Twinstead. I have only recently discovered that Brian Elsey, who lives on Bulmer Tye, was playing for Twinstead and we had a good laugh about that fabled day. .. .. .. Twinstead batted first and amassed the enormous score of just 18, with Brian top scoring with 5! Bulmer were, of course, pretty confident of any easy victory but ……. Bulmer ……. 16 all out! Bulmer’s top scorer was extras (7 byes), so only 9 runs scored off the Bat ! Bill Dixey hit 5 of these and there were 7 ducks, including, of course, me. Unbelievably Brian had the original score book, an excerpt is shown here.                                                                                                                                                                                      Peter Rowe

For an account of cricket in Bulmer from earlier years, starting right back in the 18^th century, go to …..