Sheepscombe (above) and Cheltenham College (below)
Posted by Tony Hutton
Saturday 20th June - for those of you unfamiliar with the works of Nico Craven, he is a prodigious cricket author (now retired) who wrote my kind of cricket books. At least one slim volume appeared every year describing cricket and it's characters at all levels. Despite living in Cumbria his passion has always been Gloucestershire, notably cricket at the Cheltenham festival and in the Cotswold villages.
Having met him several times watching Minor Counties cricket and corresponded with him since, I was determined to take this opportunity of following in his footsteps. Advance research on the computer revealed a morning start at the delightful Cheltenham College ground, where the College were taking on the Free Foresters, a famous old club of public schoolboys.
The ground was a picture with it's back drop of the College chapel and without the temporary stands and tents which will circle it later in the summer when Gloucestershire come to visit for the traditional festival. The college piled up the runs during the morning against a side which included their own cricket coach, none other than Mark Briers formally of Leicestershire and Durham , wearing his Durham sweater proudly no doubt still celebrating their championship title of last season.
However, after an early lunch and reunited with my wife after her tour de shops in Cheltenham, it was off to the Cotswolds to have a look at some of the grounds written about by Nico Craven.
First stop not far out of Cheltenham was Ullenwood cricket club, near the Air Balloon pub roundabout. In a hollow, surrounded by trees, and adjacent to the Crickley Hill country park it is a delightful spot. Little time to linger as Ullenwood took on Down Hatherley in the Gloucester County League division four, but Monday's paper reveals a three run win for the home side.
Next it was something like a treasure hunt to find a ground I had read about for years. Sheepscombe is not only a favourite of Nico Craven, but of many others who delight in out of the way village cricket grounds. Climbing the Cotswold escarpment on the main Gloucester to Stroud road, you eventually see a small signpost to Sheepscombe off to the left. You follow a narrow country lane for several miles with no sign of a village, until eventually you turn a corner and there is the landmark you need - the Butcher's Arms, Sheepscombe.
Passing the pub you take a no through road to Far End, before turning left at a sign to cricket club up a narrow track, which eventually leads you to a dead end in someone's garden. I had done what many must do on the first visit, missed the steep left hand hairpin bend which takes you up a narrow, unmade track, complete with boulders and no good at all for your suspension.
At this point my long suffering wife, said that if she had asked me to visit a shop up this track, I would have refused and turned back ! However, although she may have been right (she usually is), as it was a cricket ground I persevered. Soon the bumpy track gave way to a grassy plateau and there it was a long wooden pavilion perched high above the ground, which sloped away towards the marvellous view across this gently wooded valley. What a sense of achievement,
after years of reading about this heaven on earth, I had finally made it.
The ground is known as the Laurie Lee field, after the poet and author who came from the neighbouring village of Slad. He bought the field and leased it to the club free of charge. We later passed through Slad (no cricket ground), but a large wedding going on bringing traffic to a halt. It looked like the sort of event the great man would have written about.
The view from the pavilion balcony was stunning as Sheepscombe batted against Walls Crescent, an Asian team from Gloucester, who had done remarkably well to get eleven men and several supporters to the ground. The bowling was hostile and the home side soon in trouble at eight for three. The young man who was given out caught behind for the third wicket was disappointed by what looked a questionable decision from the pavilion. However he did not throw his bat or slam the door as so many do these days, but said the umpire was an experienced player who must have heared a noise, but he had not hit it.
A walk down the slope to third man at the far end revealed the other hazard of playing here. The fielder on the bottom boundary cannot see the bowler running in at the top end and only the upper half of the batsman. A six suddently flew off down the hill as if to emphasise the difficulty of fielding here. So an hour or so later it was time to move on, Sheepscombe making a slight recovery but Monday's paper again revealed the bad news, 66 all out and Walls Crescent won by five wickets. The splendidly named Fazalekarim Fadra was man of the match with 6-18 and 26 runs.
On now to Frocester,a very small village, just below the Cotswold edge, but a much higher standard of cricket - the Western Premier League no less. Frocester were taking on the might of Bath and putting them to the sword in emphatic fashion at their newish ground, Pound Close.
The man doing most of the damage was former Durham and Gloucester county player, Nick Trainor was made 128 in fine style out of a total of 234-8 in 55 overs.
The modern clubhouse had excellent facilities, but for me the best spot was opposite the pavilion where you could park under the trees with another fine view of the wooded hillside. This rural retreat was not far from the main line railway from Cheltenham to Bristol and a ride down the lane, crossing the railway, took us to the old ground, now used by the third eleven. This was St Peter's field, at the back of the church, with fine views across the Severn plain to May Hill a landmark in the Forest of Dean.
Our final call was to the village of Frampton-on-Severn which supposedly had the longest village green in England. The old cricket ground on the green, adjacent to an attractive pub has very short boundaries, but sadly was not in use today. The club has moved just up a lane opposite to a bigger ground, where the match was in progress, but nowhere near as scenic, being blighted by a line of electricity pylons. Hoever the groundsman was working on the old ground and there would be a game on Sunday, but we would be elsewhere by then.
We had been lucky with the weather, another splendid day and grounds anyone would want to go back to, although I have doubts whether my car would make it to Sheepscombe again !
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