Summer Sports - Cricket ... host functions, including quiz nights
emergence, as teams would use the Common as their ground of choice. Whichever site claims bragging rights as ‘the home of cricket’, the Common seems likely to be ranked the second or third oldest ground still in use anywhere in the world, although no evidence can show that for sure, it seems. Entries in contemporary newspapers and diaries - copies of which adorn the interior of the clubhouse where I’m chatting with Nick - do allow sporting and local historians to pinpoint certain early dates, however.
One of the most important is
Marchant’s Diary, which offers the following references: 1719: June 4; “A cricket match in the Sandfields with Henfield.”
By 1771, mention of Henfield CC is
growing ever more frequent, with games against Lewes, Broadwater, and Colston (Coulsdon, near Purley, Surrey) - the first recorded instance of the club playing outside the Sussex boundary. During this time, a Sussex newspaper was founded, so recorded cases of cricket in the village moved from diaries to more thorough accounts written up. The reason local
historians are confident in dating the foundation of Henfield Cricket Club as no later than 1771. By now, Henfield were a side of considerable strength and status, playing the best teams in Sussex and Surrey, as reports in the then Lewes Journal confirmed. The club played a major part in the creation of Sussex County Cricket Club and held a seat on the county’s committee until comparatively recently. Throughout much of the 18th and 19th centuries, Henfield’s cricketing status stayed strong and, in 1877, the club secured their future on the Common with an agreement that nominal rent would be paid to ‘enclose a piece of ground on the Common for the sole use of Henfield Cricket Club’. The future of the game on the ancient site was secured.
As the demands of county cricket became more pressing, the fortunes of Henfield, and its ranking as a big player in Sussex began to wane. Young, talented cricketers were replaced by old county players, standards inevitably dropped and appeal for the sport in the village plummeted.
“With fixtures delayed, last season ran on, which meant our contractor didn’t start work until much later than we’d have liked”
The big Sussex clubs in Brighton, Horsham and Lewes, quickly disappeared from Henfield’s fixture list and the club’s fortunes dived. Around 1911, the game’s popularity in the village hit an all-time low, with not a single recorded match taking place in the four years up to the outbreak of World War I.
The fact that the sound of willow on leather didn’t disappear off the map altogether rests largely with cricket ‘nut’ and local vicar Rev. R J Lea, who arrived in Henfield in 1913.
Although WW1 was to intervene in his endeavors, the cleric’s drive and enthusiasm for the game dragged the club up by its very bootlaces. Even during the war years, he worked hard to ensure cricket would return to Henfield, once peace descended on Britain. Drive and enthusiasm perhaps best describe the efforts of Nick who, at sixty- three, is tasked with juggling his duties at Hurst College with devoting the time needed to deliver the goods at Henfield - work that would test the energy levels of far younger men. Small clubs increasingly have to
... followed by snow in March of this year!. APRIL/MAY 2013 PC 91
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