The KCS Wimbledon Connection

Pre WW2

 The History of the Club records that in 1928:

"…a third very promising young player emerged in B E L Odhams,

one of the many Teddington members from KCS Wimbledon. His

best performance was 7-15 against Teddington Town".

Thus had this fruitful source of young players for the Club already started in the inter-war period.

Bernard Odhams left KCS in 1928 and, as his family lived in Claremont Road, Teddington, it was no doubt natural for him – as a keen and good cricketer – to join Teddington, rather than another club. He was to top the bowling averages for the Club in 1929 and 1930.

 The History also notes, in the course of the 1931 season:

"In the local derby against Teddington Town, there were 300 people

present at the start and a hint of the future in the presence of Arthur

Crisp, who opened the Town batting and made 52!" Arthur, of course,

was destined – some thirty years later - to play a large part in the

success of the Sunday 1st Xl in the 1960s”.

We learn that in the 1934 season the Club played the School:

"It is interesting to note the first evidence of a game against KCS,

whose subsequent Cambridge Blue and prolific run-getter Pat

Dickinson made a duck".

The really important acquisition from KCS in the late 1930s was of course John Pearsall. John left school in 1933, the season he became the first ever KCS boy to score a century against the MCC. In 1939 John scored over 500 runs for Teddington, as did two other former KCS boys, the Murray brothers, Gordon (who also played for Surrey 2nd Xl) and Leslie.

With the outbreak of war, Teddington managed to play quite a few games in 1940 but in 1941, all home games had to be cancelled, although about a dozen away games were played.

"At the end of 1941, the club's activities ceased until 1947".

Post WW2

During the war the ground had been partly given over to allotments, and slit trenches had been dug to discourage enemy landings (General Eisenhower's pre-invasion Headquarters were in Bushy Park). The pavilion burnt down on VE Day in May 1945, two leading players Bernard Odhams and Andrew Marsden-Levy had been killed in action and other good players, like the Murray brothers, went off to Wimbledon or other clubs. The finances of the Club were in a parlous position (plus ca change!) and there was a real shortage of active members.

On the face of it, it was a pretty hopeless position. However, there were some stalwarts who were determined not to give in. One was Oscar Chilcott who throughout the war had been determined to keep the greater part of the ground "looking something like a cricket ground". Although he had a full-time job and had regular fire-watching rotas, he still found time to mow the square periodically and also any accessible parts of the outfield. To do this, he had to transport a hand lawn mower to and from Bushy Park on his bicycle.

Oscar was Secretary from 1936 to 1948 and at a special meeting on 2nd May 1947, it was eventually agreed to try and start up again. Pat Bowen and Clifford Barton took upon themselves the major task of replacing the pavilion, with the help of generous donations from both the MCC and Middlesex CCC.

On the playing front, some key players from pre-war turned out again to good effect and the Club was able to play 34 games in 1948 under the captaincy of Peter Gibbs, a schoolmaster at KCS, who later became the Headmaster of the Junior School.

John Pearsall took over from Peter Gibbs in 1949 and so began a long period of outstanding service to the Club. A very fine batsman, there can have been few better club cricket captains than John and in 1951 he invited me at short notice to turn out for the club one Sunday afternoon and I have been a member ever since.

No doubt it was John who also invited Stewart Wise, a former KCS pupil, to play and he made the only century of the season (103 not out in an hour against Wimbledon). Stewart Wise was a Wing Commander in the RAF, winning a CBE and DFC and Bar. From memory one or two other ex KCS boys, such as Victor Buckingham and Frank Carruthers also played occasionally but their main club was always Wimbledon.

Other notable KCS Old Boy cricketers who came onto the scene in the 1950s were Roger Mathews who became an invaluable member of the Club over the years and Tony Gorton, who took over the captaincy of the 1st Xl from John Pearsall for a couple of years, only to hand it back in 1960 when Tony went off to Canada.

From 1960 onwards, I was master in charge of cricket at KCS and over the decade, I was in a position to offer good club cricket to quite a number of pupils and staff.

From the staff, Tony Hein, Geoffrey Taylor, and Arthur Crisp all played fairly regularly, Mike Haines quite a lot, with others such as John Baggaley, Mike Points, Brian Gibbons, Ian Moffatt, Alan Dures and Martin Checksfield playing occasionally.

In the early 1960s it was not easy to field four teams a weekend, and so quite a number of 1st or 2nd eleven players from King's helped make up the side on occasion: Chris Lumb, Monty Callow, Robin Barber, Michael Long, Graham Paddon, Robin Phillp, Rodney McKinnon, Lawrence Jenkin, Mike Hughes and even his father "Bungy" Hughes, Jamie Weir, Bill Bellenger and Tony Wiffen all played sporadically. Bob Ayling, who later became head of British Airways also played.

Indeed, we were having such difficulty at one stage in raising sides that I recall playing the Old Grammarians one Sunday in the 1960s, with only two - possibly three – bona fide club members playing; the rest were KCS boys. And we won!

Many others started playing regularly for Teddington in the 1960s and many were to play a big part in the fortunes of the Club: several were to captain the 1st Xl: Paul Brooks, David Holland, (through most of the 1970s), Dudley Owen-Thomas, who got a Blue at Cambridge and also played for Surrey, and Simon Reed who started the Club’s most successful era from 1982 onwards.

Others who made significant contributions, both on and off the field, were: Vincent Cushing, who got an Oxford Blue, Jeremy Hein, Mickey Carmichael, who played minor county cricket, Jonathan Poole, Bob Fleming, who came very close to a Cambridge Blue, Bernie Kingston, an Oxford Authentic, John Spry, David Denny, Pat Kelly, Chris Heslop, Nigel Edwards, who captained the Sunday 3rd Xl in 1970, and David Strang, who took on the onerous job of team secretary and who researched and wrote an excellent history of the Club up to 1982.

Clive Barnett, as befitted a future headmaster, was a magisterial and cerebral captain of the Sunday side. DRH claims that it was known for class essays and red pens to be handed round when Teddington were batting.

Sides in the 1970s and 1980s contained Duncan Campbell, John Bayliss, John Woolley, Mark Taylor, David Pilcher, Richard Luddington (who won three major Blues at Oxford), Chris Crowhurst, Tony Cooper, who later went on to play for Cobham, and Zimbabwean Charlie Montgomery.

On the non-playing side, John Hamblin has been a loyal supporter and was an excellent Hon Treasurer over a number of years, while David Hayes used to score regularly.

It is extremely pleasing to see that a large number of the people mentioned above are still members some fifty years later!

With grateful thanks to David Holland for reminding me of a few people I had left out and also abject apologies to any other KCS Old Boys still inadvertently missing.

By David Belchamber – July 2009; further updated March 2013.