Lydney Cricket Club

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Lydney Cricket Club

I'm an admin so I thought I'd better go first!

I used to play for Lydney Cricket Club in my younger days, seeing as it was the nearest club playing a decent standard.

As, I'm being lazy I've pinched the following from their website but it sums up the club far better than I ever could!

Lydney Cricket club was formed in 1862 and first played on a ground on Lydney Park Estate, which was made available by the Squire of Lydney the Reverend William Hiley Bathurst. The Reverend's son Charles Bathurst served as the Club's first President and Captain with Gilbert J. Keeling being the Club's first Secretary.

In 1875 the Club moved to its second ground, which was still within the Lydney Park Estate. This ground was used up to the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. Following the war, the Club began playing in the Bathurst Park in Lydney Town and in 1949 moved to our current home at the Lydney Recreation Ground.

County Cricket first came to the Recreation Ground in August 1963 when Gloucestershire played Surrey in a three-day match. In recent times our ground has been used by the County 2nd Eleven regularly and is to the best of our knowledge one of only two cricket grounds to host County Cricket with a tree inside the boundary. The other being Canterbury in Kent.

International cricketers with strong links to the club include Stephen James the Ex Glamorgan captain and England opening batsman whose father Peter, a club stalwart for over 50 years, is the current Club President, Geraint Jones the current England Wicketkeeper whose first game in Britain was for Lydney and Doug Hondo the Zimbabwean bowler who served Lydney as our overseas player for two seasons.

In truth we can only really claim Stephen James as our own as he was born and raised in the town and learnt to play within our junior set up.

For more details, information and some photos of the great 2007 floods please visit Lydney Cricket Club