Long Itchington Cricket Club reformed in 1976 to offer cricket to the villagers. Playing out of a farmer’s field, and watched on by livestock, this is rural cricket at the most humble level, yet still attracts a strong membership who are ...
Itchen to play!
T
welve miles south east of Hunningham is Long Itchington. Situated on the banks of the river
Itchen, from whence the village gets its name, the population is ten times that of its near neighbour and cricket rivals. The club runs two senior Saturday league teams in the Cotswold Hills league, a senior Sunday side that plays friendlies only, and five junior teams at under 10, 11, 13, 15 and 17 age groups. Players have to live or have lived in the village, or been junior members to turn out for the club, unless a special invitation has been extended by the committee. Current playing membership stands at just over forty seniors and seventy juniors. It is here that Steve Mitchell, John
Deere’s PR guru in the UK, played most of his cricket and where, whilst remaining a vice president of the club, he also coaches at the local school. The ground is situated in a very rural setting where, until recently, sheep used to graze the outfield all year round. Now, they are confined to winter grazing on the outfield to help keep the grass down, whilst neighbouring cows are kept off the ground (and out of the nearby river) by electric fencing. The land belongs to a local farmer, and the club pay a peppercorn rent for its use. In somewhat of a contrast to the smaller village of Hunningham, Long Itchington’s pavilion is an old wooden building acquired from the Stoneleigh Royal Showground. It was transported in two halves and put back together on site. There are no main services at the
ground apart from a water supply; electricity is provided via a generator, whilst toilet waste is collected in a septic tank. Although old, the pavilion still
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offers all the necessary facilities for a cricket match. Recent improvements have seen showers installed to meet with league requirements. There are no bar facilities as, with six pubs in the village, it was deemed unnecessary! Club President is Allen Hickling, who has been with the club since it reformed back in 1976, and he has been the driving force for much of that time. Head Groundsman is Graham Foster, who is also 2nd XI captain (and a keen Pitchcare member). He is assisted by Steve Rawbone, one of the club’s youth coaches, who also manages the under 11s.
A huge improvement Graham has been a member since the
club reformed in 1976, playing junior, then senior cricket since the age of sixteen. Now forty-nine and still playing and captaining the 2nd XI, he first got interested in the ground when he was eighteen, helping out by cutting the outfield with an old Massey Ferguson tractor with gang mowers. “At that time there wasn’t any real preparation of wickets,” says Graham. “The club’s groundsman used to just cut a wicket out and roll it with a walk-behind, ex-council, path roller on the night before the game. There were certainly no autumn renovations!” It was through talking to Karl
Brotherhood - the head groundsman at Solihull School, and also a close friend - back in 1992, that Graham realised there was a bit more to groundmanship than had previously been carried out. “I always wondered why, as an opening bat, I was being hit on the hand or being bowled by a shooter!” comments
Graham. “Something had to be done so, when the last groundsman retired, about ten years ago, I decided to take it on. A Graden was hired and, with advice from Karl, I started my first autumn renovation and have been doing the job ever since. Now I use our own scarifier, a Sisis Autorake, which I couldn’t do without.”
Graham and/or Steve can be seen at
the ground most evenings during the summer preparing the ground for fixtures. To assist Graham and Steve, the club operate a ‘volunteer’ rotation system, whereby current first team players have to make themselves available for a week at a time to carry out various tasks, like putting out boundary ropes, cones and other chores to help get the ground ready for weekend and evening matches. The square is built on Kaloam, and this season has probably been one of the best in terms of playability; all the prepared pitches seem to have had the best carry and bounce ever experienced. Indeed, ECB Pitch Advisor, Geoff Calcott (yes, he of Hunningham) rated the wicket ‘a huge improvement’. The machinery is very basic; old Atco mowers are used to cut the square, and a Sisis scarifier is used to keep thatch levels
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