Western Daily Press (Saturday)
A HISTORY OF CLUB CRICKET
Richard Bache dips into the pages of a new book charting 175 years of village cricket in North Somerset
WEALTHY descendants of German merchants, flamboyant Indian playboys and a succession of rural clergymen wouldn’t necessarily be the first characters one might imagine to populate a history of cricket in a North Somerset village.
But it never does do to make too many assumptions about the makeup of any cricket team.
As those of us who cherish the game know all too well, it harbours an unusually high proportion of eccentric and colourful personalities. And is all the richer for it.
A newly published book about cricket in Congresbury and the surrounding villages over the past 175 years is chock full of stories that tell us so much about not only cricket, but the social history of rural North Somerset too.
It has been published by Congresbury Cricket Club, in association with Congresbury History Group, but isn’t purely about the club itself.
For despite the meticulous research of the club’s own records and the archives of local and regional newspapers, including the Western Daily Press, the actual date the club was officially founded remains slightly vague.
However author Clive Burlton, also a club vice-president, is confident that cricket was being played in the village in 1844, albeit not necessarily by what is recognised as Congresbury Cricket Club today.
The research done by Clive and others at the club has, though, discovered a treasure trove of documents and memories.
A particularly amusing nugget that was unearthed was a photograph and account of a men versus women cricket match in the village in 1907.
In 2019, as the events of the past week where England’s football World Cup semi-final loss to the USA was watched by 11 million people has shown, women’s sport is a serious business and provides drama that is every bit the equal of men’s sport.
It was less so 112 years ago in Edwardian Congresbury.
For the men handicapped themselves by not only batting left-handed – but by using broomsticks.
And they won – twice.
A report uncovered in the note
book of one Ernie Standen reads: “The men could do little against such bowling as that of Miss Iris Ashman and C Walter and were disposed of for the small total of 36 runs, which after all was not bad score considering the difficulty under which they were obtained, namely by batting left handed with broomsticks.
“The fair gentler sex commenced their innings with light hearts ‘only 37 to win’, but they were soon to learn the glorious uncertainties of cricket being all out for 17.
“Upon the second venture the ‘broomstickers’ made a poor show and the hope of the ladies again revived, but though they tried hard they had to acknowledge defeat by one run. The gents had won fair.
“During the interval tea was provided.”
It is not recorded who made the tea – or whether any gent received a gentle thwack with one of those broomsticks for such a condescending report...
Although the women failed to achieve victory in that particular match, the pride the club has for two of the women who played there going on to play for England shines through.
Helen Plimmer, who won the World Cup in 1993 with England, gives an amusing account of growing up in the village and spending hours at the cricket club, when she and some other young mates weren’t being rebuked for climbing on the roof of the village flower show’s marquee!
Her memories of cricket tours with England also paint quite the picture – without ever quite breaking the mantra of “what goes on tour, stays on tour”.
We’d certainly love to hear a little more about the deadly swarm of Indian bees, a drunken hotel gunman and a night on the tiles with New Zealand’s finest.
Kathryn Wilkins, who was part of the boys’ under-13s team that won the Bristol and District Junior Cup in 1988, also recounts tales of how she progressed to full England honours.
She is one of the very many West Country cricketers who owe a substantial part of their development to the late, great Somerset star Peter Wight and his indoor cricket school in Bath.
Those players of the relatively modern era, however, owe a debt to the generations who came before them.
The book recounts the stop-start nature of cricket in Congresbury in the 19th century, with several nascent versions of the club folding before it securely established itself.
This wasn’t particularly unusual in Victorian England.
Among those who played a prominent role in establishing Congresbury Cricket Club was Charles Albrecht, the son of a wealthy Hamburg merchant, who somehow wound up in North Somerset.
He arrived in the village in 1893 and despite a minor misunderstanding that led to an appearance at Wrington assizes in 1894 after his nationality was questioned, he threw himself into developing the club.
A report in the Weston-super-Mare Gazette and General Advertiser in 1894 added that he had also introduced a quoit club, “which has more attraction for some of the sedate male population, who however, are quite as much in earnest with it as the younger ones with cricket”.
A visit to cricket clubs up and down the West Country tends to show that particular itch among slightly older players is largely scratched with a tendency to prop up the bar these days...
That wasn’t an option back then, however.
In fact, the book recounts, it wasn’t until 1954 that the cricket club received permission to sell its first bottle of beer.
The ‘battle of the bar’ was fought throughout the early 1950s with the Rev Alex Cran, perhaps reflecting the social mores of the time, being among the most vocal critics of both plans for the bar and of playing matches on Sundays.
His stance had, however, softened
The men handicapped themselves by not only batting left-handed – but by using broomsticks
by 1963 when, during the more permissive swinging sixties, he actually officially opened the new bar and club house at the Recreation Ground!
It is doubtful that many churchmen would, however, be too approving of some of the antics of one of the more recent overseas players to have played at Congresbury.
Buddha Mangaladas is one of a number of distinguished players who played between 1994 and 2019 that former skipper Nick Clifton has written brief pen pictures about.
Mangaladas, who played for Congresbury in 2009 and 2013, is described as a colourful and likeable player who was a decent all-rounder and someone who “certainly made his mark off the field”.
It goes on to reference an online review of a docu-drama “the Indian playboy” has recently starred in.
Interest piqued, I tracked down the review in no less an organ than movie bible The Hollywood Reporter.
It says: “Seen through the eyes of Buddhadev Mangaldas, a 27-yearold Indian playboy and cricketer from the swinging coastal town of Goa, life is a party and women are exercise machines you use in rotation. In the Indian context of the Mumbai Film Festival, this small film’s bold use of full frontal male nudity and uncensored lockerroom talk seems radical enough... though unlikely to ever obtain the Indian censors’ approval for domestic release.”
Not exactly Geoffrey Boycott!
Any history of a cricket club will almost certainly feature several particular families cropping up regularly.
Congresbury is no different and anyone who has played league cricket in Bristol or North Somerset will not be surprised to hear that the Fisher family feature prominently.
Mike Fisher is the fourth generation of the family to play for the club (his son is the fifth) and has recently marked 30 years of first-team cricket.
He follows in the footsteps of his father Andrew, grandfather ‘Brandy’ (a particularly legendary character) and ‘Jolly’, who was ‘Brandy’s’ uncle and played as far back as 1910.
It is another name that will be familiar to those versed in club cricket in the West that brings the book to a close, Mike ‘Rocky’ Regan.
A distinguished playing career was followed by perhaps an even more laudable and lengthy spell as a league umpire and youth coach.
No cricket club can survive without selfless and inspirational volunteers such as he.
The book, like amateur sport, is littered with examples of these people who willingly volunteer their services, time and, occasionally money, to enrich our society.
This feature only scratches the surface, the story of how a village’s life intertwines with cricket really is worth reading in full.
Written and compiled by local historian and author Clive Burlton, the 112-page A4 publication features 250 images and some wonderful memories of Congresbury’s past.