Summer Sports - Cricket
that either this was a way of providing work for families affected by the downturn in agriculture or a means of getting cheap labour. It’s been a wonderful heritage and the feeling is that it was the former.” The ground still belongs to the Dukedom and it is leased to the Friends of Arundel Castle Cricket Club. Lee is employed by the club. “The Friends Club was formed in 1976, a
year after the then Duke of Norfolk, Bernard Fitzalan-Howard died, by his widow Lavinia, the Duchess,” said Lee. “Her husband’s second cousin Miles, who
took over the Dukedom, was not a cricket lover and she very much wanted to see that the game would continue being played at Arundel. The formation of the club meant that the Norfolk cricket heritage would last. It was a fitting tribute to her cricket-loving husband.” “There is a more direct Norfolk interest in
cricket these days. Edward, who became Duke in 2002, is President of the Friends Club and he does come to matches from time to time.” Before 1975, the Duke of Norfolk XI had
Lee Farquhar, Arundel’s Grounds Manager
played many a game on the ground, notably against visiting international touring teams. Often as not, it was the curtain raiser to a season and the first match on the itinerary of overseas test sides. The ground’s record attendance of 15,000 watched the Austalians play a Duchess of Norfolk’s XI in 1989 as a prelude to an Ashes series. In 1990, Sussex played their first County Championship match at Arundel. This was during the time Lee was first here as an assistant. Since then, he’s altogether been involved in seventeen Sussex Championship matches plus the T20 games that are now tagged on to the fixture. There are sixteen pitches on the square at Arundel. They’re not all 10 feet wide: some are just 8 feet 8 inches, which is just the width of the creases. The larger ones are in the centre to cater for the bigger matches. Beneath the whole ground is an 8-inch layer of chalk over a clay sub-structure. Six inches of topsoil overlay this. “It’s fairly free draining and we don’t have major problems with surface water,” said Lee. “The exception to this is that the square itself is a slight ‘saucer’ which means, in very wet conditions, water can be held in the middle and this can be a nuisance. To keep the playing areas dry, I use Total Play and Stuart Canvas sheets and, for big matches, I cover the whole square with a single sheet from Nigel Fenton.” “Otherwise, there are no major hazards to
upkeep, other than now and again having to keep pheasants from the estate from eating grass seed. Germination sheets usually do the trick. Rabbits are more of a nuisance to us.”
Over the years, Lee and his predecessors Upper and lower tier viewing on big match days 64 I PC JUNE/JULY 2016
were left to produce pitches for county games held here but, since the last Memorandum of Understanding from Sussex CCC, he’s had to follow their specification. In short, he has to do it the way they want. I sense this grates a little.
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