LANCING MANOR CRICKET CLUB

From it's earliest incarnation to the present time - Lancing Manor Cricket Club has , like many clubs of a similar size , gone through varying levels of success , on and off the field.

The origins of the current club go back to 1922 – Worthing Old Grammarian’s Cricket Club was formed alongside the Football Club of the same name.
They were invited to merge with Worthing Cricket Club for the 1923 season only to find themselves the principle team as Worthing CC had lost access to their own ground and therefore Worthing ‘A’ CC as it was now called became the only ‘Worthing’ team.
With Worthing CC re-starting at their present home in Broadwater in 1927 the two clubs merged fully – with some of the committee of Worthing ‘A’ moving to the committee of Worthing CC.
This ended chapter one of the WOG Cricket Club as it was known.
In 1931 a one-off cricket match organized by the continuing football club was played – this perhaps sowed the seed for the reformation in 1934 when a handful of matches were played under the WOG CC name.
From 1935 onwards WOG played a full summers’ fixture list right up of course until WW2, matches were played through most of 1940 before fixtures were cancelled and some players moved to Findon to provide play.
The summer of 1946 came too soon to organise matches, but this allowed time to prepare the club to hit the ground running fully in 1947.
Playing at various grounds around Worthing – Broadwater Green, Hillbarn, Rotary, Victoria Ground, Homefield Park and Northbrook Park, they scouted round and found a piece of land that they obtained a short lease on, Forest Road. This was to be a joint home with the football club and between them they set up (it was said) a splendid site for sport. The wicket wasn’t ready until 1951 but finally WOG had a full time home. They had planned to extend the lease when Worthing Council planned to build a school with the Football and Cricket Club’s playing effectively on the playing field of the school. This plan was destroyed by the council deciding they were going to build a housing estate instead of the school.
This meant WOG CC had to either go back to wandering around Worthing Council pitches or ground share. As luck would have it though, Lancing Manor CC had been evicted from the Lancing Manor ground for failing to maintain the wicket - Press reports in the Worthing Herald of 31/5/1957 stated much conflict and stubborness from both LMCC members and Worthing Rural Council who simply deemed the other to be responsible. I guess in hindsight it was a fight LMCC were unlikely to win.
The summer of 1957 saw no cricket at the Manor Ground, with Lancing Athletic CC and Sompting CC members no doubt chuckling to themselves at the sudden influx of 'Manor members' wishing to play for them!
WOG applied to play at the Manor Ground for 1958. Other applicants were considered, including the previously evicted LMCC but the WOG reputation in the area for maintaining a quality wicket and 'social club' won them the vote.
WOG CC had a new home.
So after Lancing CC (1850-1925 and 1937-39), Sompting CC (1946-51), Lancing Athletic CC (1946-51) and Lancing Manor CC (1952-56) there was another new club calling Manor it's home. Thankfully this club has remained to this day.
Through those 'wondering' years and the 'Forest Road' years the club had a number of players who were the backbone of the team for 20+ years - Frank Allen and Harry Foinette took around a 1,000 wickets between them and Dave Rickard had over 60 hauls of 5 wickets in his 750 wicket total - he also had over 20 plus scores of over 50 including a long-standing record 146no being the top score.
The averages as match reports do not cover every match though, so the outstanding performances only give some perspective of how good these players were. It may well have been a time when every club had bowlers taking wickets at <7 or 8 runs, but there were enough batsmen around averaging over 20 to show that it wasn't always a steady procession.
It is however a time when nearly all the best bowling performances are seen and also when most of the low scores are seen.
In the autumn of 2011 an oil painting from 1958 was donated to the club by a local firm of Solicitors, by the artist John Adams, it depicts a match with the WOG flag (Navy/White/Sky Blue) flying as well as distinctive Caps of roundels of the same colours for the home team players.
The scene itself is great to see how different the ground looked - although the 'within boundary' trees are positioned at wide mid-off (and mid-on from other end) rather than behind the bowler due to the square and wicket being some 30 yards further down the hill (prior to the widening of the A27).
Through some years of the 1960's the square/wicket was played North/South, but by the late '60's was back to East/West.
In February 1965 it had been voted to change the name to 'Manor Cricket Club' - especially as the 'Old Grammarians' tag didn't necessarily associate with the majority of members as there were few of the old pupils still connected with the club and many Lancing residents and players from other clubs had joined anyway over the previous half-dozen years or so.
Effectively though it was a re-naming of an evolving club - the Committee and the 'stars' of the team had remained through the changes.
The club would actually re-name itself again, back to 'Lancing Manor Cricket Club' for the summer of 1971.
A handful of players were certainly prominent in the early/mid-60's - Ray Knight (6'4 opening bowler) averaged around 7 runs per wicket and when he left for Goring CC in 63', Ex-Worthing player Tony Watts (100 wickets as skipper in 1965 at 6.8 each!) and Neil Hewitt who most weeks were taking anything between 3 & 5 wickets per game with the more than occasional 6,7,8 wicket haul thrown in too, took over.
Tom Dix's 9-15 in 1959 remains the 2nd best figures ever and Gerry Dawson (skipper for 66/67) had many spells of 6&7 and even had a 9-for.
If the the full figures were available these four bowlers they would rival Russell Wood and John Coles as best bowlers the club has ever had.
During the 1960's it was certainly a bowlers paradise wherever the games were being played. Score around 150 would win 9/10 matches and regular scores of <50 were seen.
It goes without saying that very few 100's were scored and perhaps only 1/3 matches saw a 'Manor' half-century scored.
The club would be so different 30+ years later when it'd be perhaps once a month that a bowler obtained a 'five-for' whilst 50's+ would be seen virtually every innings.
The cricket square itself - which of course had a major say in the creation of the club as we now know it - was up always East/West - apart from 3 matches at the end of 1956 when the experiment of North/South saw the ball flying head-high and in 3 matches 1,100 runs were scored for the loss of 14 wickets. It went back to E/W until 1959 when the N/S came in again and stayed that way until the end of the 1968 season.
With the widening of the A27 and the creation of the Manor Roundabout, a fair chunk of the outfield was lost and the move back to East/West was back in, to remain to this day. The artificual wicket - which greatly reduced bowlers figures(!) was installed in 1984.
Therefore the last quarter century has not seen a grass wicket/square and the possibilities of that remain remote unless there is a significant change of thought from the Council.
Unfortunately, as seen in the pictures above, the Manor House itself has sadly been replaced by a Leisure Centre....and the old Pavillion (an old Train Carriage !) was 'burnt down' at more or less the same point in time, in the early 70's. Some of the character of the ground still remains...especially in the form of the Eleven oak trees within the playing area !!

The nucleus of the early years were players who would form the backbone of the team for the next decade . People like Captain Mike Reynolds (6000+ runs) , John Lane (4000+ runs 500+ wkts), John Ray (3000+ runs 300+ wkts) , Bill Winter (3500+ runs 1100+ wkts) , Dave Wood (11000+ runs), Ted Poole (3000+ runs) and Russell Wood (876 wickets @ 10.7 !!) would all play in excess of 300 matches for the club , and in Bill Winter and Dave Wood over 1500 matches between them !! - all of whom were not only very good club cricketers , but the type of player every club needs - those that would get involved with the jobs everyone hates...team secretary/fixture secretary/treasurer/pitch and pavillion maintenance.

1st XI 1970
Reg Phillips, Russell Wood, Roy Loveland, Ted Poole, John Lane, Cyril Ford, John Ray
Barry Harman, Norman Johnson, Mike Reynolds(c), Neil Tomsett, Umpire Bill O'Sullivan

1976 Colts - Worthing And District Champions
Terry Smith, Simon Marchant, Steve Johns, Roger Bellamy, John Coles, Steve Scales, Chris Prees
Stuart Matthewson, Paul Thurston, Roger Geal, Mark Loveland, Dicky Dale(?)

1st XI 1980
Bill O'Sullivan(u), Steve Scales, Russell Wood, Nick Bazen, Mike Reynolds, Dicky Garrett
Les Lenham, Roger Geal, Paul Thurston, Geoff Stanford(c), Roger Fielder, Chris Prees

1st XI.v. Hove Medina May 2000
Steve Luckhurst , Dave Baker , Danny Griffin , Dave Smith , Nigel French , Gary Mason
Chris Dunne , Simon Haggis , Neil Reynolds(c) , Andy Livermore , Jeff Read