The History of Sidley Cricket Club

There was a cricket club as early as 1890, but the present club was founded in 1901.
The first match (Married men v. Single Men) was played on Whit. Monday on a field adjoining Bodles Farm, known as Whitelock’s, and loaned by Mr Smith of Great Worsham.
Dr Sidney Kent was the first president.
The Canon T.T. Churton (Rector of St. Peter’s, Bexhill, – Sidley was in that parish then) was an influential supporter of the club.
Mr A.J. Brook (“Squire” Arthur John Brook), son of the famous Master of the Bexhill Harriers, was an early captain of the team and president of the club. He was a gentleman farmer imbued with a love of the national game. He played right up to the eve of the First World War
He dominated the local game for over 50 years.
He laid out the Sidley Ground behind the New Inn. The first match played there was his XI against Colveston in July 1901.
In the 1890s he was both president and captain of the Bexhill club. He later captained St. Barnabas, turned out for Little Common from its earliest days and then captained Sidley.
In 1862 he was one of the 22 of Hastings playing an All England XI on the East Hill ground, and when the Australians first came to this country he raised a team to play them on the Central Ground.
He died in December 1917 aged 73.
On Whit Monday 1908, 284 runs were scored against Northiam. Hooker made 112, the first century for the club.
For many years the club played its matches on the Haddocks Hill ground (all built over and now called Wrestwood Road).
In 1947, when local cricket was getting back into its stride after the Second World War, a move was made to acquire Mr Brook’s old ground, then owned by Mr Charles Gulliver. The council rejected a request for the land to remain in private hands, but an appeal was upheld by the Ministry of Town and Country Planning, and the acquisition completed in 1948 at a cost of £1,050, due to the generosity of Mr Gulliver and the help of Mr E.A. Marchant. The Sidley Cricket and Football clubs then amalgamated and developed the Glovers Lane ground into what it is today.


Other Local Cricket

Bexill CC also played at Glovers Lane for the 1948 season, but the next season tranferrred their home games to the Polegrove.
Bexhill CC had been formed in 1919. Sidney Salter, who had been the Sidley secretary before the war, now became the secretary of Bexhill CC. A lease was secured of Mr Brook’s cricket ground at Glovers Lane (formerly part of the old Ingrams Farm). It remained Bexhill’s home ground until the Second World War brought local sport to a halt. Mr Salter remained secretary until 1936. Mr Rex Salter, his son, then took over.
The Polegrove was officially opened in 1923. Bexhill CC transferred its home game with Hailsham from Glovers Lane to the Polegrove.
In 1933 a Bexhill Ladies Club was formed.
In 1967 the Sussex and Kent 2nd XIs met at the Polegrove.
Viscount Cantelupe laid out a ground in on the lower slopes of the Manor House grounds in 1893. Many celebrated matches were played there until it was cut up in 1898 by the construction of Magdalen and Manor House Roads and the sale of adjoining sites for building. In 1894 Lord Cantelupe entertained the South African touring team, and in 1896 the Australian Test cricketers – the most famous occasion in Bexhill cricket history. The ground was also the scene of the celebrated cycling tournaments in 1896 and 1897.

This Manor House ground was also used by the St. Barnabas Club, founded in 1894.

In 1897 the Bexhill Club had amalgamated with Mr Brook’s own eleven and by the middle of the 1890s had fallen by the wayside – supplanted basically by the Working Men’s Club team. It had its headquarters at the York Hotel and played its home games on the Down – as did St. Barnabas for a season after the Manor House ground ceased to exist. Earl de la Warr stepped in and laid out (at a cost of £1,000) part of the site that later became the Dorset Road Ground – a home of cricket and tennis until the Second World War. The St. Barnabas Club moved to this new ground for the season of 1899. In 1904 the entire name was changed to the Bexhill-on-Sea Cricket and Lawn Tennis Club. In that same year the Tradesmen’s CC was formed, and the Brotherhood also fielded an eleven.

In 1899 the Working Men’s Club decided to call itself the Bexhill Cricket Club. Although it went out of existence in 1906, there was for a time the complication of the Bexhill-on-Sea club playing at Dorset Road and the Bexhill club using the Down! Tennis became ever more popular and in 1912 the cricketers surrendered the ground to the tennis players and the Bexhill-on-Sea Cricket Club as a separate entity became defunct, although its players strengthened other sides, especially the Tradesmen. Until that event, the Dorset Road Ground had enjoyed many notable seasons with well-known touring sides, including the MCC. In 1904 the Marquess Curzon, Viceroy of India visited the ground: he was convalescing at the Sackville Hotel.

Little Common CC was formed in 1883 (Mr Brook played for them in 1884!).