CLOSE OF PLAY...

The old photo above shows what used to be Hampshire Cricket Club`s home ground at Northlands Road in Southampton.   A good old fashioned, traditional county ground which for some years now has been superseded by the ultra modern, very impressive Ageas Bowl on the outskirts of the city.   But it was at Northlands Road that I had my first introduction to county cricket when, back in 1949, my parents and I made the journey across Southampton Water on the Hythe Ferry and then a bus ride to see Hampshire take on the touring New Zealand side.

Now that I have lived in Kent for well over half a century, my cricketing loyalties are divided between  the county of my boyhood and the county I now call home;  nonetheless I have always retained a keen interest in Hampshire cricket and over the years I have had the sad duty to record the passing of perhaps most of my boyhood cricketing heroes from those long ago days - Jimmy Gray, Derek Shackleton, Vic Cannings, Charlie Knott, Neville Rogers, Neil McCorkell and more - it`s quite a long list.

And today I heard of the passing of Alan Rayment at the age of 92.  At the time of my Northlands Road introduction, Alan was making his way from the second eleven to the county side, in which whilst never quite matching the heights of some of his more illustrious team mates, he nevertheless he served the county with distinction for a number of years.  His statistics may not match some of those of his contemporaries - 199 matches for Hampshire; 6,388 runs at a modest 20.31; four centuries but 23 fifties; a top score of 126 - but cricket is not all about numbers.

Among my collection of cricket books, there are a couple by John Arlott, a devoted cricket man of Hampshire, in which he writes of "my most heartening experience of the season being the batting of Alan Rayment."  He goes on to say, "Rayment `came good` in the last match of the (1951) season against the severe test of facing the Gloucester spinners Goddard and Cook on a turning wicket. The wicket favoured the bowlers throughout yet he never gave a chance in some five hours batting.  Most impressive of all was his maturity, never once taking a liberty with a good ball or failing to punish a bad one, his two innings in that match each bringing a half century through decorative stroke play."

As well as cricket, Alan led a varied and interesting life.  He and his wife Betty were expert ballroom dancers and ran a dancing school in Southampton until the late `50s.  He spent a year as a cricket coach with MCC at Lord`s in 1959, since when he said that he was "in turn a teacher, estate agent, community worker, postgraduate student, property developer and psychotherapist."  So, as yet another bleak winter approaches, the echoes of summer bring yet another sad departure from those far off days when the sun always seemed to shine and those like Alan Rayment brought cricket into the life of eager boys like me.