MULTI-SPORTS
Cricket, football and hockey exist and thrive here mutually, yet separately. Their individual wellbeing is important to them collectively
” Rolling a practice strip for the Sussex one-day cup game The definitive history of cricket at Saffrons
It looks immaculate, but then so do the other four lawns, thanks to John’s hard work and dedication
” The Saffrons grounds team 92 PC June/July 2019
part of the Saffrons site, and with leases for their respective playing areas are Eastbourne Bowls Club and the Compton Croquet Club - more of which shortly. Eastbourne Town FC is apparently the oldest senior football club in Sussex pre- dating the Saffrons, but it took up residence here in 1886. It plays in the Southern Combination Premier Division and its ground has a 3,000 maximum capacity. Also within Saffrons is the home of Eastbourne Hockey Club, with senior and junior teams enjoying a new sand-based, floodlit pitch. It is cricket, however, for which Saffrons is best known, and this is perfectly chronicled in the book Cricket at the Saffrons by local Chris Westcott, which details its history as a club and county ground admired countrywide for over a century. In the book’s foreword, cricket writer and broadcaster E W (Jim) Swanton opens by saying: “The Saffrons ground at Eastbourne has a fragrant place in the history of English cricket consistent with its name.” The author also declares that John Arlott once
described Saffrons as bearing comparison with Cape Town’s Newlands and Worcester’s New Road in terms of beauty. Praise indeed from two of the game’s legendary observers and not given to easy compliments. Everything this day at The Saffrons was focused on cricket and the Eastbourne Cricket Club’s high spot of the season, the staging of a key one-day game for Sussex CCC.
Sussex head groundsman Andy McKay was overseeing preparation for the game, but it was The Saffrons’ own team, headed by Jamie Ramsden, that was handling the actual work.
“Eastbourne Cricket Club funded the relaying of part of the square last autumn at considerable cost,” said Roger. “Andy has done ‘Clegg testing’ of the strip to be used and he reckoned the surface had distinctly more bounce than last year, so we’re looking forward to a summer of great cricket here.”
The match against Gloucestershire was to be the new surface’s first outing since this
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