Summer Sports - Cricket


Looking across the ground to John Arlott’s first school O


ne of the great joys, indeed mysteries, of the game of cricket is that it throws up characters, even legends, who do not actually make their name


bowling or batting. One such giant in cricket is the late John Arlott, perhaps the greatest ever cricket broadcaster. He was born, and grew up, very close to this now very urban cricket ground. It has an indelible link with him. Standing on the boundary and looking


across at the backdrop of this prosperous and pretty large Hampshire town, I recall an early chapter in John Arlott’s autobiography, Basingstoke Boy, where he describes where the ‘seed was sown’ for his lifelong love of cricket. He attended the neighbouring


Fairfields Primary School, which incidentally continues to use an adjacent council pitch area looked after by the club. Describing his childhood eureka moment not long after the First World War, John Arlott wrote: “Opposite the school was the cricket ground - May’s Bounty - named after Lieutenant-Colonel John May, the bibulous local brewer, who gave it to the town. One summer afternoon, the boy came out of school and hearing unfamiliar noises coming from ‘the Folly’, as the ground was called locally, he went, curiously, to see what was happening. There he saw men, some of them in white clothes, throwing balls at each other in netting cages and hitting them away. It was intriguing. He continued to go there.” The ground has a place in cricket history, and a significant one for the countless millions who have ever listened to the game. The spirit of Test Match Special, it could be said, was sparked close on a hundred years ago by a bunch of blokes ‘netting’ here. I’m here to meet another local man, Craig


Williamson, who’s in charge of the upkeep of May’s Bounty cricket ground and pitches for football and rugby clubs that share the facilities. Craig is a ‘Basingstoke Boy’ if ever there


Groundsman at May’s Bounty Craig Williamson, Head


was one. He’s been in and around the ground for as long as he can remember, both as a cricketer and, more recently, as a groundsman. He’s quite a decent opening bat, and one time had hopes of getting to county level, but settled for making runs for the Basingstoke Club. Like John Arlott, his dad played a big part in getting him interested in May’s Bounty and cricket. Twelve years ago, as a school leaver and one of the cricket club’s youngest players, he


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