1985 -1994 (written by Len Johnson)

In 1985, our fiftieth year, we elevated Ron Stevens to Club President and I was appointed Chairman .

The first thing that comes to mind on reflection on this decade is the cricket tour to Seaton in  Devon as part of our 50^th anniversary celebrations . 18 players, 8 wives, 11 children and 3 other guests supplemented with visits from Ron and Teena Stevens who were holidaying nearby. We were accommodated  in the  Warners Holiday Camp with five fixtures arranged from Sunday to  Friday and a rest day on the Tuesday. Sadly, poor weather intervened and the first two fixtures were cancelled. Nevertheless, far from downhearted, the players threw themselves into the Camp’s various sports activities and tournaments. If I correctly remember the men’s doubles tennis was won by the Angelo brothers, Ken and Dave beating John Heinson and Greg Stevens in the final.

Tuesday was gloriously hot but we had no game. Sod’s Law. As a result we all participated in the Camp swimming gala and club members made a clean sweep of all the men’ s events. The most remarkable of which was Hector Mullens who at the age of 49 when we had no contenders for the underwater race entered himself and won it, even to his own surpris e. Chris Angelo, Dave’ s son won all the junior races and young Matt Stevens won the under 10s novice width.

One morning saw the most robust of football matches with our players divided between two teams from which campers outside our group soon dropped out once the game was under way. After all, they were on holiday but for our lot this was serious competition and even at a veteran stage there was a lot of good footballers and no quarter given. Jim Waddell, Mark Mullens and Mark Haylock were still active players.

We may not have done so well in the intellectual competitions but we were still winners when Jan Finch at 35 and nearly twice the age of the other contestants was crowned Miss Warner for the week. Mrs Warner as her husband Keith reminded everyone.

The tour was not  the only celebratory success of  the  year. In April our annual dinner and dance at the Widmore Hotel, Bromley was expanded to a 2am finish and England cricketer, Derek Underwood was a guest spea ker. Greg Stevens gave a witty toast to our founders. I gave a response. Trophies were handed out by Derek Underwood, perhaps the most deserving of  all time the Jean Pearce Trophy to Clyde Cartwright. We had 154 guests including Derek Leeks who came all the way up from Wales. A cabaret act interspersed the dance and Life Members were invited out to the middle to cut a commemorative cake and partake of champagne.

Another anniversary event we staged during the season was a fixture against a representative AKCC eleven selected by George Fowler (Fledglings CC) and led by Bob Easton of VCD Elmstead. The game was preceded by a beer and ploughman’s lunch for Life Members, ex -players, wives and children in the wonderful upstairs ballroom of The National Dock Labour Board with its balcony view of the pitches.

Our term as Lord Harris’ s tenants at the now privately owned National Dock Labour Board was soon to end. We needed a new home for 1987. Again, thanks to Mike Blake, his ear, as ever, close to the ground we learned that the old Molins Sports Ground off Avery Hill Road, New Eltham had been bought. It had fallen into disuse for a couple of years but  its new owners, Brooksbys, had done a good job in restoring it.

It  was as well we had a good committee because this was a difficult period with regard to  players. We had joined the Metropolitan League for 1986 but it was with an aging side. Two of the younger players, John Heinson and Phil Blake had already left in 1985 to play league cricket with Metrogas (although John stayed with our Sunday team) which exacerbated the problem. There was no doubt Andy Thomas was a very good captain, popular and with strategic nous but he felt constrained by league rules which limited bowlers to ten overs. He did not feel he was in control, complaining that such regulations dictated match tactics. He was not alone and many were sympathetic when he stepped down from captaincy at the end of the 1986 season. Keith Bishop was keen to take it on but the club surprisingly re-elected the admired Tony Haylock with Keith as vice-captain. Keith was eventually elected in 1988 and 1989.

Tony’s selection was to lead to a change in the constitution. If he was to skipper the League team he would not be available on Sundays. We had only once, in 1950, had a separate Sunday captain but now we were to bring back a split in captaincy and Jim Waddell was elected captain of the Sunday side. This early separation was symptomatic of the divide that was League cricket versus Friendly cricket. A divide that was not just in our club but in cricket generally .

At this time I was also on the AKCC (Metropolitan District) committee as were Ron Stevens, its treasurer, and Mike Blake. The introduction of league cricket had devastated most fixture lists, lists that had taken many years to  establish and Frank Gilder who ran the AKCC fixture bureau struggled to keep up with demand. The fact was that individually none of us was whole-heartedly in favour of league cricket. But it was the impact on the game itself that was the  basis of many hours of discussion. Maybe we were too  old on the committ  ee, Mike Blake in his mid-forties was the youngest, most, like me, were mid-fifties and Ron was over sixty-five. However, our every attempt to each stand down was thwarted by a lack of new, young aspirants to replace us.

Clubs appealed to us to have bowler limitations removed and other rules changed. Some clubs were against any regulations and could not see why games could not be conducted on the same basis as “friendlies” with an award of points.

Leagues set out their own regulations and despite all the pleas from clubs for us to consider alternatives we could not intervene. The emphasis in League cricket is based on a win/lose result. Its drawback was that if a team was in an irrecoverable losing position capitulation was all that was left to them. Consequently, teams felt margins of defeat were not an indication of their capability.

These conflicts are the same that afflicted Grenfell. League or Non-League. Saturday or Sunday.

One player seemingly unaffected by all this was Keith Secrett. A gifted cricketer he blossomed into, in my and many others opinion, the finest bowler the Club had ever had, arguably the fastest at his peak. When called upon he could moderate his pace to bowl seam or swing or adapt to  bowl off­ spin. Added to that he was a talented batsman and swift outfielder with very safe hands and a long, long throw.

He spearheaded the bowling with no discernible long term support although we had high hopes of Barry Feist another young quick bowler, Alan Coupland’s son-in -law who joined in 1985 – but he played only three seasons. We saw the first of Keith’s older brother Martin in the same year. Steve Perry, an old team mate of Keith Bishop’s from Paxton Park was introduced by him at the same time but Steve did not make his presence felt until later seasons.

Simon Walsh, Neil Quinton and Matt O’Donoghue joined in 1987. Simon and Neil were already established batsmen and made an instant impact but were not with us for very long. Matt, a work colleague of Colin Stone, was a promising young fast bowler, very quick but a bit raw but who progressed and became a mainstay for another ten years.

Del Babi was a Pakistan under – 19 player. A left -hand bat, left arm spinner who played 9 games in 1988 and another 4 in 1989. An outstanding talent, eventually he was enticed to Kent League club, Bickley Park as their overseas player. He was probably destined for bigger than us but his move highlighted another unwelcome aspect of League cricket where the best players get headhunted by the bigger clubs.

In the  past, clubs were community  based, e.g., company, school or village and that common interest is what bound teams together . Players generally did not move between clubs except for employment or residence changes. Having said that we benefitted from an influx of players from Kemnal Manor CC in 1989. The circumstances were different. Kemnal Manor had reached the point where they could not put out a team. Dave Demarzo, Mike Sage and Ray Brown were in their forties and were probably just looking for a game but there was some younger blood, Richard Tull, a wicket­ keeper/batsman, Andy Littlechild, Lee Pepper and Dave’s sixteen year old son, Danny who wanted to progress. The best of them all was Dean Johnson, a nineteen-year-old batsman.

In anticipation of so many new players I had a letter from Greg Stevens and John Duffel! volunteering to  run a second League team . I advised the committee that if John and Greg were prepared to  run it it was worth a try. It went ahead. It was a success and went some way to obviating the obstacle that occurred in 1988 and resulted in careworn, put – upon Colin Stone resigning from the Club. The captain, Keith Bishop, had constantly selected his best choice from availabilities without regard to putting together a reasonable Sunday eleven. Players like Tony Haylock, John Duffel! and Keith Finch who might have played either day were constantly chosen for the League game . Consequently, some who could only play Saturday never got a game and the Sunday team was left scratching around to make an eleven making Colin’s job difficult and time-consuming causing disagreement between him and Keith. Keith’s position was understandable but it made Colin’s untenable. With a second team Keith had the pick from 22 without resorting to the Sunday players.

As well as the ex-Kemnal Manor squad we were generating some younger players of our own – Hector’s nephew Brian and Brian’s school friends, Gary Willson and Nick and Neil Shah . Alistair Newman, another ex Kemnal Manor player, joined in 1990 and was a useful all-rounder who was to become Player of the Year in 1995. Darren Barlow was another good all-ro under who turned in good performances over five seasons.

It would be remiss of me not to pay tribute to John Heinson for his contribution throughout this decade. Unarguably, apart from Kevin Laroche, the best batsman in the history of the club. Not a big hitter but a languid and skilful stroke maker with a solid defensive technique. His prolificacy, consistency and reliability put him at the top of the averages every season. A competent wicket keeper, probably our  best available  at this time but  more often required as a bowler at a tidy medium pace that was a useful change . His statistics are a testament to how good a cricketer he was but in 1992 he took on the captaincy for a second time, the first was in 1984, and proved a good tactician and leader as well. He skippered for five consecutive years.

He assumed responsibility at a time when we were forced to play sixteen and fifteen-year-olds to make up a team for League fixtures. That was the impossibly absurd position we were in but there was no doubting the exciting promise of these youngsters, Jon Jones, Paul Angelo and Matt and Simon Stevens when added to that of Danny Demarzo, Brian Mullens and Gary Willson. Jim Wilson, Danny Doyle and Graham Charles also came onto the scene before the decade was up.

More upheaval was to come when we were served notice that 1992 would have to be our last at Brooksbys . Its owners had sold to Metrogas but afforded us the courtesy of letting us fulfil our arranged fi xtures . Timely, Ron Stevens, now a member of Bellingham Bowls Club, alerted us to a rumour that the once derelict sports facilities opposite  Bellingham  Station in  Randlesdown Road were being reinstat ed. Owned by the City Parochial Foundation they were funding a Bellingham Community Project (BECorp) to establish a sports and social amenity. Andy Littlechild was our secretary at the  time but it  was Dave Demarzo and Greg Stevens who took on the task of investigating its possibilities for us. The project was being managed by the Rev Bob Wallac e, the vicar of St Dunstans church at Bellingham Green . The last tenant there had been Fisher Boys Club and they had let go the  cricket table in favour of foot ball. However, at a meeting with Dave and Gr eg it emerged Bob Wallace was a very keen cricketer (he would play a few  games for  us) and our interest was paramount in him convincing his committee to establish a cricket pitch. They took it seriously and no less than Keith Pont the director of development at the ECB and tasked with encouraging the unification of clubs’ ground preparation (with Surrey Loam) was approached and oversaw the  creation of a brand-new table to a top  grade specification . We had a new home for 1993. It may have taken a year for the wicket to settle but it was perfectly friendly.

I write retrospectively and I know what  the  future  holds but  I  think in 1994 I  would have been worried about our future. An age gap had appeared, we were mostly over forty or under twenty. The generation that should have been at its peak was missing. That is the dilemma that League competition  poses for  small clubs; how to hold on to  its prime players and how  to  nurture new, young players.  What I’ve learned over the  years is that it  is very difficult to hold together  a team of the very best players. In an afternoon not everybody will play a part and really good players will become dissatisfied. What we’ve had and have is some outstanding players supported by a lot of good players but for me the heart of the club is the bits and pieces players, in which group I class myself, who can take pride in a smaller contribution but enjoy the success of the team.

It has been a privilege for me to be involved with this club. I did eight seasons as secretary, eight seasons as fixture secretary, four as treasurer and I think just one as assistant secretary. From 1964 to 1981 I was never off the committee and became chairman in 1985. It has been like an extended family to me. My closest friends are all associated with club but it has never just been about the cricket and the club, the friendships were about life. We socialised away from cricket, knew how to relax, put aside the problems from work and relationships in favour of anything that involves joking, laughing, partying and overall having a good time. We held events and had tours . What marks the members of Grenfell is that through the generations they have all been honest, upright, hard working men of integrity and fair play. That is our culture, those that couldn’t subscribe to it didn’t belong and didn’t stay.