From The Archive: 60 Seasons As A Hampshire Member

Words: Dave Allen

As Christmas 1960 approached, my mum suggested I might like a Junior Membership of Hampshire County Cricket Club as a present. I had been to one match in my native Portsmouth in the glorious summer of 1959, and rather more there and at our Northlands Road ‘Headquarters’ in the following season, so mum realised I was quite keen – despite growing up in a largely non-cricketing family.

So it was, that after four Championship matches in May 1961 (one at Bournemouth, three away) I walked one Wednesday lunchtime from my High Street school, the short distance to the United Services Ground, presented my first card at the gate and watched Jimmy Gray (112) and Henry Horton compiling a second wicket stand of 170 against a Lancashire side missing the injured Brian Statham.

We were disappointed that Ken Higgs had trapped our batting hero Roy Marshall first ball, but returning after school saw Hampshire reach 329, which proved over those three days sufficient for a third victory in five matches. We could not yet know that this was the prelude to the county’s greatest triumph.

I was just eleven years old in that glorious season and one of only 21 Junior Members from the Portsmouth area. I have no idea how many others are still ‘with us’ but I am no doubt that while an envelope with a receipt signed by Desmond Eagar did not feel the most thrilling of childhood Christmas presents, its value and impact on my life is inestimable. I think it cost one guinea (£1-5p today) but whatever, it has repaid itself over-and-over.

At that Christmas, 1960, the County Cricket Club declared its membership details in the annual Handbook under four headings: Full, Local, Lady and Junior, subdivided into 24 Areas within the county, plus two in Dorset, one in Wiltshire one for the Rest of England (352 members in total), 294 Affiliated Clubs and 129 Life Members. Encouragingly, after an unprecedented second place in the rather soggy 1958, and a glorious summer in 1959, total membership had risen from 4,998 to 5,382 in just two years, with full adult memberships – the most lucrative – soaring by 30%.

In those days – and until the reorganisation of Hampshire Cricket in the 21^st century, we were, like all counties a members club, with published accounts, an AGM and an elected Committee with a Chairman (WJ Arnold), a Vice-Chairman (Sir Reginald Biddle) all sorts of ‘Honorary Officers’ and no fewer than 30 Committee members including two former pre-war captains Cecil Paris and GR Taylor, another amateur from Tennyson’s days, JP Parker, and two men, future Chairman Geoffrey Ford and RF Hughes whose sons followed them onto the Committee and are now both among our Vice Presidents.

The principal benefit of full membership back then was probably access to the pavilions and their bars and there was also the correspondence which kept members in touch with developments. The pavilions included the old structure at Northlands Road which in 1960 was in two parts; the main pavilion and bar adjacent to the little players’ dressing room with its outside wooden stair case, and separated from it, the Ladies pavilion. They were not joined until the mid-1960s.

From the 1970s and particularly from the following decade, membership became increasingly significant as giving first option on tickets for the major knock-out cup matches. But in 1961 it was perhaps enough to say, you were a member at the moment of Hampshire’s great triumph. That sense of identity has always been an important but ultimately unquantifiable element in the matter of ‘belonging’ to the county’s cricket.

Join the Hampshire Cricket family with a 2020 Membership - there’s never been a better time to join or renew with Early Bird discounts now available, whilst the option of a free Junior Membership is also included as part of all Standard, Premium and Executive Club Memberships.

More information on each Membership offering can be found online via the link above, over the phone on 0844 847 1863 or in person at the The Ageas Bowl Ticket Office (Mon-Fri: 9am-5pm).