History

The Early Years

The early history of the Staff Cricket club is obscure. A number of its records, including some old scorebooks, perished in the Zoology Department fire some years ago. It is however certain that in the late 1940s and early 1950s a regular programme of friendly fixtures against local clubs and the Staff teams of other Scottish Universities was maintained during the Whitsun term.

Among those who played for the club in the 1950s and 1960s were Ogilvy McKenna (a Scottish International), Willie McKane (who continued, after his translation to a chair at the University of St Andrews, to play against us into the 1980s) and Fred Parsons (whose recollections of these games, and of carrying the club kit-bag to and from them, are still fresh).

Joining the Strathclyde League

A change came in the early 1970s, when the club extended its fixtures beyond the end of term into the vacation, and joined the Strathclyde League. The more competitive nature of the cricket posed a challenge which was successfully met. The club has fielded an intermittently strong and invariably enthusiastic team through the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.

It would be impossible to mention all of the capable players who have represented the club during these years, but one feature (among many) of the club's somewhat idiosyncratic character is worth observing: we have always been able to field outstanding spin bowlers, from David Evans and George Abbott in the early 1970s, through Stephen Phillips, Roger Downie, Gordon Curry and Richard Cogdell, down to Neil Rollings at the present time.

We have never won the Strathclyde League or its associated cup; but we appeared in a Cup Final in 1982, and we finished second in the First Division in 1993. For many years the club's home fixtures were played at the University's ground at Garscadden after the end of the students' season. More recently, the closure of the Garscadden facility has meant that the club has used a variety of grounds, including the Glasgow Corporation pitch at Richmond Park (a pleasantly secluded field, surrounded by trees, on Glasgow Green), theSt Aloysius school field at Millerston, and an artificial wicket at Stepps Hockey Club. We hope that, when the University's new cricket facility at Garscube is ready for use, we shall once again have a home pitch to play on after the end of the GUCC season.

Playing for the Club

Membership has always been open to members of staff and research students, plus children of members of staff (who were invaluable in the field as the average age of the team mounted in the years of stringency in staff recruitment in the mid-1980s); we have also been assisted by a sprinkling of students who played for us after the end of the student season, and who in some cases, like Andrew Gallen and Owen Jones, maintained their association with the club as "General Council members" after graduating.

Among the pleasures of playing for the club are the connections it establishes across departments and faculties, and the contacts it creates between the University and the wider community. We are, of course, always glad to welcome new recruits; any member of staff who would enjoy a game of cricket should contact the writer in the Department of History; tel. ext. 4368.

Lionel Glassey