Summer Sports - Cricket


Pitch preparation for the next league game


was in 1880 that the name May became associated with the ground, when local brewer John May saved it from being used for building plots by buying it himself to preserve it as a place to play and enjoy cricket. The pavilion goes back to 1901, when John


May had it built to replace a thatched building and the ground enlarged at his own expense. It would certainly have met the gaze of John Arlott. This was in the days when the ground, for whatever reason, and as the cricket broadcaster himself recalled, was known affectionately as the ‘Folly’. It, quite rightly, was thereafter known as May’s Bounty.


Hampshire first played cricket on the


ground in 1906, against Warwickshire in the County Championship, but really only used the ground sporadically over the next sixty years. It wasn’t until the1966 season that the county put the May’s Bounty firmly on its


“


fixture list. Championship matches always attracted large crowds, as many as 2,500. The establishment of the Rose Bowl - now the Ageas Bowl - as the county HQ in 2001, however, led to the inevitable fall from favour of the Bounty as an outground. Within a decade, all the county’s first class cricket was being staged at the Bowl. It’s a trend seen elsewhere on the county scene. Aside from the cities of Southampton and


Portsmouth, Basingstoke is the largest town in Hampshire and, because it is in the north of the county and some distance from the Ageas, it has a good claim to staging first class cricket. The powers at the May’s Bounty are making strenuous efforts to bring it back to the May’s Bounty and the new pavilion project is a signal to Hampshire CCC. As Tim Tremlett, Hampshire’s Director of


Cricket, said in the Basingstoke Club’s celebration brochure to mark its 150th year: “Hampshire cricket has a deep rooted history


at May’s Bounty and, in my time, it was always a firm favourite with cricketing legends such as Gordon Greenidge, Robin Smith and the mighty Malcolm Marshall. Our overall playing record was extremely good and a warm reception was always forthcoming, especially from the hospitality tents. The pitch has always helped to produce exciting cricket. When it is fresh, it zips around for the quick bowlers, but often flattens out before turning later for the spinners.” There is no doubt that, without John


May’s generous financial help years before John Arlott first got the thirst for cricket here, the ground would have become an industrial or residential site and the game would not be played here today. He was bountiful, and the ground is aptly named. Perhaps county cricket may one day return too.


Hampshire cricket has a deep rooted history at May’s Bounty and, in my time, it was always a firm favourite with cricketing legends such as Gordon Greenidge, Robin Smith and the mighty Malcolm Marshall


A club game in progress at the May's Bounty 64 I PC AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2017


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