Author Richard Colman
Dolly Bell (scorer); ? ; Cecil Grey; Peter Drury; Derek Bullimore; ? ;
Front row (l to r):-
George Printer; Cyril Bane; Jack Codling; George Wolstenholme; Tim Burton-Pye; Reggie Bane; Ray Tuthill. Circa 1950s
Southrepps is known to have had a cricket team from just after the Second World War until the late 1950s. A team may have existed before the War but no earlier records have been found.
The team played on the Recreation Ground where a wicket (of sorts) was cut and rolled out towards the edge of the football pitch, which resulted in a very long boundary on one side and a very short boundary on the other.
In those days very few, if any, players owned their own equipment and the Club provided sufficient bats, pads and gloves for the players to use, in turn, as needed. Any other body protection was non-existent. The equipment was carried around in a very large communal bag.
The team competed in a North Norfolk league against other local village teams including Bodham, Thornage, Salle, Sharrington, and Field Dalling among others.
It also competed annually for the Rothermere Cup, a limited-overs, knockout competition. Travel to away games was in Captain Gray’s Dormobile people carrier.
The team folded in about 1958/59 due to a lack of players. As the members of the team aged they were not replaced by younger boys from the Village, mainly because the Secondary Modern School at North Walsham, where most of the boys were then educated, did not teach or play cricket seriously and the few boys from Southrepps who did want to play cricket to a decent level joined better teams at Bradfield, Overstrand or Cromer, all of which have thrived and still exist today.
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