We Remember Them

This year the Club will take part in the Remembrance Ceremony, laying a wreath at the War Memorial next to the Cricket Green.

According to an article which appeared in the Norwood News on 12th May 1925 there used to be a roll of honour in our historic pavilion recording the names of Club members who had served in the First World War. This has long since disappeared so we are grateful that their names are listed as follows in the newspaper article. The names in bold are unfortunately the cricketers who paid the supreme sacrifice with their lives.
Major W L Poston
Col H F Bidder
Captain S C Clark
Captain C B Little
Lieut Alan Upton (we have subsequently discovered from the Upton family that the newspaper had wrongly recorded Alan Upton as losing his life in the war as he died in Horsham in 1958 in his mid 60s)
Lieut Guy Poston
W J Beardmore
F Boxall
H Britton
L Blandford
W Brett
G Brett
H Bowra
A E Foster
B W Bullock
A Green
J C Drane
W F Fisher
D G Fisher
A G Jackson (listed in the newspaper as C Jackson, but from Club records and the online Roll of Honour now identified as Arthur Gordon Jackson)
H Owen
H Parks
L Robertson
A Sandham
W C Sandham
F A Stewart
P L Williams
J Knowles
C F Sanders
E Staintz
W E B Foster
S Pillinger
2nd Lieut Ralph Upton
W T Desmoulins
D Sullivan
C Butler
A Stagg
H Wyatt
H Webb
F Guyatt
R Chart
H Brett

We had discovered some of this information from investigations in 2014 for the exhibition put together for the Heritage Day opening of the pavilion that year. We had found out for instance that Andy Sandham had served in one of the Sportsmen’s Battalions and Burn Bullock had been in the Royal Flying Corps.

Curiously the list does not include the name of Sgt J W Howse whose name appears on the Mitcham War Memorial. A newspaper article of October 1914 recording his death at the battle of Aisne earlier in the month, mentions he was a very promising cricketer and a member of Mitcham CC.

Another famous Mitcham CC player of the time Herbert Strudwick is not listed, but this is likely because he served on the home front in munitions rather than in the forces.

Cricket was suspended on the Green for much of the duration of the Great War. There was the occasional friendly match played. The Club was effectively “mothballed”, indeed in 1916 Club funds were so low that their landlords (brewers Nalder and Collyer) were persuaded to excuse the Club a year’s rent!

Our Cricket Green was also used for other purposes – including ceremonial parades of the newly formed Town Guard and recruiting concerts featuring the local Gasworks band.

We are planning to include information about the players that served in WW1 in our next Heritage exhibition in September 2019, if you have information about any of them we would be very pleased to receive it - you can contact us by email via mitchamcricketclub@gmail.com or write to Adrian Gault 4 Salisbury Ave Cheam Surrey SM1 2DQ