It is good to see the return of the cricket fixture between a Hambledon CC XI and a Merry Harriers pub XI, the game taking place this Sunday (July 27^th) played in a Twenty20 format. The match starts on the Cricket Green at 1pm and all villagers, family and friends are welcome. Please make a noise!

This fixture has a long and glorious history. According to Arthur “Ginge” Blackman, Hambledon CC’s long serving president, it goes back until at least the 1960s and possibly earlier.

Ginge’s wife Sue grew up in the Merry Harriers and it was her father, David Pearson, landlord at the time, who is known to have arranged games with the village side.

Only a search through old score books will reveal subsequent games, but the fixture was certainly revived in the early 1990s by Colin Beasley, whose family ran the Harriers for 40 years. I have found a photograph of match played in 1993 which shows myself and local plumber and character Ted Ellis departing the field as number ten and eleven batsmen. Neither troubled the scorers!

Another match played later that decade produced a remarkable win for the pub. Steve Blackman, son of Sue and Ginge, had played for Hambledon as a youngster but had moved away to university. Growing up, one of his best mates was Kenny Sewell, son of villagers Nev and Jenny Sewell, who lived at Rock Hill Farm. Both turned up, hung over, to play for the pub.

The team was a motley collection that included Declan Whelan, an lager-consuming Irishman working at St Dominic’s, behind the stumps who had never played cricket before, “Mad” Hugh, a Civil War re-enactor with a loose grasp of the rules, cartographer Dop, who couldn’t map a boundary, Howie Cobb, whose dog Bumble was better with the ball than his master, Dave Mansell, “Fishy” Fishlock and myself. To complete the side, we had landlord Colin Beasley as skipper, his sister Sue’s former Chelsea First Team footballer boyfriend Lee Frost, who could actually play…and Steve and Kenny.

The pub batted first and Steve opened and proceeded to smash a massive score of around 150 with support from Dave and Lee. Records of this match are still to be traced, but Hambledon CC were faced with a challenging total which Kenny Sewell ensured they never reached, taking almost all of Hambledon CCs wickets.

With pitch-side beer provided by Colin and his wife Sue and sister Sue, and loud support from pub locals, it was a momentous win with scorers Mary Burrows and Brigitte (Bee) Coleman ensuring some sort of order to the proceedings.

The celebrations continued long into the night back at the Harriers.

The fixture continued with regularity until 2006, not long before the Beasley family left the Harriers. Along the way, many other pub locals were roped in to either play, umpire, score or support, as our photos show.

Let’s hope that the 2025 revival, when new landlord Alex Winch walks out with his pub team, sees the regular return of this fun fixture.