Lives in Cricket No 20 - Maurice Tompkin

Appendix Two Cricket at Countesthorpe Cricket was played at the rear of the Railway Hotel in Countesthorpe from as early as the 1870s. The team playing there were members of the South Leicestershire League from 1898 until 1962, when the ground was sold for building. The two roads that provided access for the houses constructed on the site were named ‘Beechings Close’, after Dr Richard Beeching who as Chairman of British Railways was responsible for the ‘Beeching Report’ which caused the closure of many railway stations, including that in Countesthorpe, and ‘Maurice Drive’ in memory of Maurice Tompkin. Countesthorpe’s village cricketing rivals, Countesthorpe Baptists, joined the South Leicestershire League in 1906 and played on a variety of grounds, until settling on Ward’s Field, close to the Baptist Chapel on Church Street in the centre of the village after the Second World War. They then left the Leicester Mutual league, a competition that played mainly on public parks in and around Leicester and rejoined the South Leicestershire League. Their ambitions did not stop there, for they then decided to take the bold step of buying their own ground on Bassett Avenue and raised funds by running a football competition. The gambling nature of this caused the Baptist church elders to disassociate themselves from the cricket club, so they became known as Countesthorpe Wanderers. This was a very appropriate name as this was at least the fifth ground in the village they had used in their fifty-year history to that point. When the brewery sold the Countesthorpe Cricket Club ground for building, the club attempted but failed to find another ground, and they also failed to effect a formal merger with the Wanderers, though several players ended up playing for that team. In time, because they were the only Cricket at Countesthorpe 129 Maurice Tompkin’s best shot, recorded on a Countesthorpe street sign.