Forty-Four Matches, Fourteen Men

The Club at Its Height (1960–1962)

1960 opened with major work on the lower ground pavilion, an £800 project helped by a £400 grant from the Supporters' Association of Warwickshire C.C.C., secured largely through the influence of W. Leslie Jones. The 1st XI put together a record run of ten consecutive victories with Neil Houghton and Brian Clewer to the fore; Geoff Pritchett fell one run short of a hundred at Leicester Ivanhoe, and Roger Coombs headed the 2nd XI batting with 657 runs. The deaths of R.S. Hill and Jack Frisby cast a long shadow over the year. The season's fixture card recorded 78 Vice Presidents, 72 playing and 124 non-playing members — 278 in all.

1961 may have been the Club's strongest season in its history. Membership rose to 335, the long hoodoo against Coventry & North Warwickshire was finally broken, and the Festival Shield came to Rectory Park. Neil Houghton was elected Cricketer of the Year by the Midland Club Cricket Conference. Behind the stumps Roger Coombs claimed 76 victims, a Club record still standing more than fifty years later, and headed the 2nd XI batting with 619 runs besides — the latest in a line of keepers of whom it was said that for fifty years Sutton had possessed wicketkeepers of the highest class in club cricket.

Membership peaked in 1962 at 351 — 83 Vice Presidents, 97 playing and 167 non-playing members. The 2nd XI won a record 29 matches, D. Drake took 116 wickets, and Geoff Pritchett scored 821 runs in what proved his fifteenth and final season in the 1st XI. Norman Sharp stepped down after six years as chairman and was elected President of the Midland Club Cricket Conference. Lower down, John Ratledge's Owls played twenty games, won twelve and lost two, with eight lost to the weather and not a single drawn game recorded.

By the Pavilion Clock

All the Club's fixtures were non-league, but they were fiercely competitive with Sutton's reputation at stake. The strongest clubs of the circuit — Coventry & N.W., Olton, Knowle and Dorridge, Wolverhampton, Leamington, Harborne, Stratford, Moseley Ashfield and Kings Heath — came year after year. There were no points to contend with, only winning or losing the toss. Matches were regulated by time, starting at 2.30pm and finishing at 7.45pm, so the large pavilion clock played a major role; the requirement to bowl twenty overs in the last hour had not yet been introduced.

Convention did the rest. The captain of the side batting first would normally declare at five o'clock unless he had been bowled out first. Late declarations were frowned upon and in extreme cases led to questions in the bar afterwards about the suitability of future fixtures — hence the expression "drinking the fixture back". Fielding flannels had to be dry-cleaned, which made grass stains expensive.

The setting was more charming than comfortable. The old thatched pavilion had its charms, but the small changing hut beside it, with one small basin and no hot water or showers, was certainly a challenge. The Club was supported by more than seventy Vice Presidents and over 160 non-playing members; local residents watched from cars parked along the top boundary fence, and one of the captain's match-day duties was to appoint two players to take the collection box round the ground while Sutton batted. Midweek there was the Festival Shield, a twenty-over knock-out for sixteen Sutton and district clubs — Streetly, Walmley, Four Oaks, Water Orton, Wishaw, the Hockey Club and Old Veseyans among them — played on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and drawing good support, especially in the bar.

Amalgamation, Triumph and Fire (1968–1969)

The amalgamation of the Cricket and Hockey Clubs was formally confirmed in April 1968, with Norman Sharp elected President of the new Association, Charles Groves Hon. Secretary and H. Ford Hon. Treasurer. A Building sub-committee then submitted plans for a pavilion costing a little over £11,000, to be erected by Lessar Bros. Ltd with six dressing rooms, a club room and the usual amenities; the membership approved them unanimously. The Town Council extended the lease by a further seven years to twenty-eight in total, a £500 grant — the maximum available — came from the Midlands C.C.C., and with the "120 Club" and the hockey club's contribution some £9,000 was already in hand.

The cricket of 1968 was played in wretched weather, every 1st XI Saturday fixture being rained off, yet Neil Houghton produced the rare feat of a century and a hat-trick in the same match against Walsall, Michael Dixon made 183 not out for the Hawks, Martin Bloomer scored 623 runs and Peter Wells took 6 for 7 for the 2nd XI at Bromsgrove. The Annual Dance returned a record £234 profit on the back of the "120 Club" Mini draw, won by Mrs L. Balmer.

Then, under Martin Bloomer's captaincy, came the best season the 1st XI had ever had: twenty-three victories in 1969. Tony Robertson, an attacking batsman who made a century and a 96 not out on the same weekend, and T. Jameson, brother of the Warwickshire player, both strengthened the side, while Jamie McDowall kept wicket and opened the batting for Cambridge University. Sutton entered the new Derrick Robins national knock-out for the first time and went out at Lichfield in torrential rain and complete darkness.

The year's dominant event was not a cricketing one. With the appeal funded and the new pavilion agreed, the old building was stripped and contractors moved on site in early November. The day before demolition a spark from a workmen's brazier set the thatch alight and gutted the pavilion completely. The groundsman Alex Harvey was inside at the time and came to no harm, and the insurers paid out — but the building that had governed the Club's afternoons by its clock for eighty years was gone twenty-four hours before it was due to come down.