Welcome to Waldron Cricket Club & Club History

• Club founded in 1757 although first match recorded in 1746
• 100 year centenary game scheduled for 24th May 1857 was abandoned (never started) because of heavy snow. A notice board was put up on the ground to notify travelling party (horses and carts) that the game was off. This notice was eventually found nailed to the door of an outside toilet in Warren Lane.
• The bi-centenary game although planned for 1957 and recorded in the Club AGM minutes for 1957, 1958 and 1959 eventually was run in 1960 with all players dressed in the costumes of 1757 with equipment of that time as well. It was well covered in local press.
• The Cricket Club played its home fixtures from the point of origin on Church land now a grazing field in the property named the Old Glebe. At the turn of the 19th/ 20th centenary the President was the local vicar of All Saints Church (origin 1195) and this may well have been the tradition for much of the history of the club. This site lies to the north side of the road opposite the existing ground. The Ground was named by the locals as the Cattam, which may have been after a Breton word for a Ladies game that materialized into stoolball.
• The Lucas Family offered the Cricket Club the use of the existing site (now again called the Cattam, in 1921, probably because it was flatter and better drained. Although flatter it also included a bank in the playing area to the north of the square which also carried a name with a Breton origin. This was “the batter” which came from the Breton word, similar to abattre, “a wall that diminishes upwards!”
• In 1923 the Local men of the Village on coming home from the First World War built the pavilion over a long weekend. There is a plaque on the building which reads:-The Pavilion was erected and given to Waldron C.C. by R.E. Hassell esq. June 1923. In the memory of his late Brother Lt. Col. Robert de Bray Hassell O.M.C. When the floorboards collapsed in the late 1990s the discarded beer bottles were found in the rubble underneath from that original working party.
• The Club has a recent history of managing to play its cricket matches uninterrupted by weather largely due to the outstanding drainage of the ground on sandstone and on a windswept slope. Combining that with the discovery of the origins of the cricket club being identified first of all by the centenary match being snowed off, the club motto has become “Nives Ludum Impedire Solum Possunt” which when translated from the Latin means “Only snow can stop play!” This can be very difficult for modern players to live up to when playing through heavy rain.
• A few years back the then Editor of the “Cricketer Magazine” indicated that Waldron Cricket Club was the third oldest in known history.
• Origins of the game of cricket are believed to have stemmed from a game played by shepherds on the Sussex Downs. The ball was a stone or piece of flint wrapped in wool and dyed with the shepherd’s usual marker of red. The wicket was a part of a wicket turnstile or fence and the bat a shepherd’s staff.
• The game then evolved into a betting vehicle for Southern Aristocrats/Landowners who challenged similar titled gentlemen or Manor owners with substantial gambles over the outcome of the game. The landowners did the betting and the batting and the Farm worker staff did the bowling and the majority of the fetching now known as fielding.
• Waldron Cricket Club now has an ambition to rebuild the now dilapidated pavilion with one that can withstand the next 100 years, ideally with running water and electricity.
• It is intended to have the new building (which already has planning permission) built in time for the commencement of the 2007 season. It is also intended to run a celebratory match in June to commemorate the 250th year. We are still in the middle of a fund raising campaign which it is hoped will be in a position to facilitate the building and necessary finishing features. The Robert de Bray Hassell memorial plaque will be relocated to the new building.
• Waldron Cricket club today runs a full team schedule at the weekend where a lot of touring sides come down to play and enjoy the location as one of the origins of the history of the game. We have a midweek side as well and a flourishing junior section, which was launched in 2000.
• The official address of the club is the Star Inn (which has its origins in the 13th century) and where some memorabilia is kept.

Please request membership of our site so we can grant you access to the wealth of information we have available.

Thanks for visiting.

Latest Play-Cricket News

Cockspur Club Twenty20

The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) today confirmed a new Twenty20 competition for ECB Premier League clubs called Cockspur Club Twenty20. Cockspur Rum already sponsor the 45-over ECB National C

> Read more >>

• Don't miss out on the news
• Register for NatWest CricketForce 2009
• 2006 winners go well on TV
• Kids can watch for a quid in July