Having planned this trip to Norfolk for some time around the Manor Park festival, just outside Norwich, where the county play three three day minor county championship matches over three succesive weekends, Saturday 22nd July was scheduled for a day of league cricket before the main event of Norfolk v Cumberland the following day.
To our surprise when reading up on the East Anglia Premier League we discovered that the league programme consists of fifty overs a side games in early and late season, but in the middle of the season the games start at 11.00 a.m. and have a total of 120 overs. The side batting first can bat for 64 overs. This all seemed a bit complicated so we stuck to our original plan of sight seeing around the Norfolk Broads for the morning and joined the cricket action after lunch.
Our first port of call, after a pleasant riverside pub lunch, was the ground of Acle who are not an East Anglian premier team and play in the Norfolk Alliance premier division. A pleasant ground, directions by courtesy of a pleasant pub landlord, with a large club house and playing area surrounded by other sporting facilities. A modern scoreboard as shown below.
We learned that the visitors Downham Town were in fact top of the league although they were not having it all their own way as Acle batted well and ended with a score of 230-7 after we had moved on. Downham won fairly comfortably by six wickets but in the last of the 50 overs.
The Acle pavilion.
Next stop was in the very attractive rural village of Halvergate, where East Anglian Premier League side Vauxhall Mallards have their headquarters at a pleasant tree lined country ground, with another one next door where the local village side were playing in the Norfolk Cricket League Division 2 East. The Mallards were playing Swardeston from south of Norwich who are also a well known club who often do well in the national club knock out competition. The home side were batting and it seemed a little slowly with Todd, the star performer out lbw for 81 which did not please him at all.
The Mallards made 216 all out in 63.5 overs which Swardeston knocked off in only 46 overs to win by five wickets.
Two views of the Vauxhall Mallards ground.
The bottom picture is taken through the gap between the two adjoining grounds where Gillingham, from South Norfolk near the boundary with Suffolk and not from Kent, were playing Halvergate in a much lower level game. A lot of noise emanated from their side of the hedge shortly after the game started and when I investigated Gillingham in smart red caps were already 11-3 in the third over. A fourth batsman was given out but after some debate recalled by the fielding side. Wickets kept falling here and shortly before we left they were 60-6 and we spoke to the already padded up number eleven who expected to be batting very shortly.
To our surprise on finding the score in the local paper on Monday he did not need to bat as numbers 7,8 and 9 added another 130 runs and ended their 45 overs on 190-7. A real turnaround which gave them the chance to bowl out Halvergate for 144 and win the match by 46 runs.
Next target was the ground of Norwich CC at the village of Postwick, which took certain navigational skills to find our way through country lanes, before eventually returning to the main road in desparation. We gathered the village was pronounced Postik (as in Bostik) by the natives and although situated in Ferry Lane it was not particularly picturesque to say the least and we only stayed for a short visit. This was another East Anglian Premier game and Norwich were batting even more slowly than our last game totalling 165 all out in 63.2 overs. The opposition Sudbury from Suffolk had no difficulty in knocking them off in only 46.5 overs.
We were now heading back towards our hotel on the north side of Norwich and did manage another venue not far away in the village of Sprowston, where some study of the street map suggested a village team. We found it perhaps to our surprise quite easily and this turned out to be not only the ground of Sprowston CC but also the home of Norwich Union Rugby union club. The shared headquarters as you would imagine seemed to have a good sized bar and all facilities and there were in fact two cricket grounds again side by side.
Sprowston first eleven were playing Brooke in the Norfolk Alliance premier league, i.e. the same division where we started in Acle and the visitors were just starting their innings to chase the home side's 176-8 in 50 overs. On the other pitch it was back to basics again Sprowston's thirds were playing Great Melton thirds in the same division as Havergate v Gillingham. It turned out that both games were won by the visitors by five wickets something of a common theme during our day's most enjoyable tour. Certainly cricket is alive and well in Norfolk with far more leagues and clubs than I ever imagined. We will be back. Tomorrow the Minor Counties game between Norfolk and Cumberland starts.
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