We don't have a picture of cricket on the Green around VE day, although there is a fair bet there was a match. The picture at the top of this article dates from 1937, but cricket in the 1940s would have looked very similar.

The Club's 1946 Yearbook notes that during the war years:
“In spite of many difficulties and the call which took most of the younger players into the Forces the game went on. Sirens wailed, aircraft throbbed, and doodle-bugs buzzed, and yet crowds of spectators, happy to find a little relaxation, encircled the Green for a programme of matches that was almost as extensive as the pre-war days. Sides were got together, mostly from “home-based” civilian members – any one of whom would be called upon to drop out for a Services member – and generally the cricket was good. Its quality fluctuated as the composition of the sides was never very constant, but such things didn’t matter very much – full sides were found, even though it meant roping in (to their great content) those who in 1939 knew that the twilight was closing on their cricketing career”

During the six years of the war the Green had been kept in action by the members who were on the home front – led in particular Jack Pillinger (well into his 70s by this time who served as Club Secretary through the war) and Fred Cole. Fred helped save the pavilion when it was set on fire by incendiary bombs. Apparently his only thought at the time was to have the pavilion in use for the coming Saturday’s match! Fred also grew to hate the (manual) heavy roller which it was frequently his duty to use during the week to prepare the pitch – supporting groundsman Bill Dann. Fred later recalled that Burn Bullock used to help him wield it, but there were many evenings when Burn disappeared to “put up the blackout” in the Kings Head pub and didn’t return! Between them they managed to keep the ground in excellent condition “despite the visitation of incendiary bombs and one High Explosive bomb which left an ugly crater.

Mitcham is believed to have been one of the most heavily bombed South London boroughs. The Cricketers Inn also copped a bomb strike. But it was not possible to save this old building which had served as the Club house before the pavilion was built in 1903, and where James Southerton had been the licensee in the late 1800s. The bomb in question was a parachute mine with a delayed action fuse which landed between the Vestry Hall and the pub. The authorities had to decide which building to try to save so shielded the Vestry Hall, leaving the Cricketers Inn to take the full force of the subsequent explosion.

The club lost fewer players in action than they had done in the Great War, but mourned the passing of N Burroughs, R Boxall, T O’Boyle, R Jackson and W Rogers all of whom had died on active service in the RAF.

The 1945 AGM was reported to be a very happy affair with the pavilion crowded with players “eager to get cracking” with peacetime cricket.