The year was 1423. There were few things which gripped Alcestrians with such an excited expectancy each year as did the annual contest between eleven men of Bidford Super Avon and eleven men of Alnecestre. The game known as Je') de Criquette had been played from time immemorial, usually by farmers and farm hands; boys learned what few rules there were from an early age - on plots of spare ground and, when the constable was not looking, in the middle of the town's streets.

Organised games against other towns and villages were rare things: the exception was Bidford. This year of 1423 was important: the Alcester men had lost the game for four years running but this time it would be different, for they had a new batter, in the form of a local blacksmith with a mighty arm and a new bowler who did strange things with the ball The Jeu de criquette had been fixed for the Saturday following the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in mid September, the traditional date. The ground chosen was a section of Alcester's single Open Field which had been left fallow in 1423: the Court Leet had so ruled and also named seven men who were to graze their sheep on the ground. This was the only preparation of the wicket and the surrounding area.

The Bidford Xl left their parish at nine of the clock, to be in good time for the start of the contest at eleven. Two farm carts carried them along the old Roman road, which they called Ryknield Street. Other carts, with relatives and friends, followed. The day was very warm and the ground hard - there had been no rain for three weeks. The stumps or pieces were placed in the centre of a furrow between two ridges and a farmer's chain of 22 yards was used to measure the traditional length to the bowlers' line. At the batters' end there were four pieces, surmounted by a single bail, with one piece only at the bowlers' line. This arrangement, with batting at one end only, was a Warwickshire/Worcestershire custom. Tales had reached Alcester that in the southern counties of Dorset and Hampshire only two pieces formed the wicket and there was a batter at each end of the 22 yards. However, two men at the wickets had not been accepted locally and it was necessary for the fielding team to dismiss all the opposition eleven.

In 1423 it was the duty of the Alnecestre men to provide two balls and two spares in case of loss. Two local housewives had the duty of making these and by general consent they were beautifully crafted, with the leather finely stitched. Both the Bidford and Alcester teams had but three bats per team: these were made from the willow tree but unlike bats in later years had no splice - a hefty stroke therefore could jar the hands, hence an outer coating of wool was attached to the handle. The field of play had no mere (boundary) marked out (again, unlike the southern counties) so that a batter hitting the ball a long way needed to run as many lengths as he could.

The home eleven on these occasions was expected to provide the umpire and, in the cause of fairness, it was generally agreed to invite a local cleric. Master John, the chantry chaplain, had done this before and had accepted. This year there was an addition, viz. Brother Joseph af Alcester Abbey had agreed, with Father Abbot's permission, to sit by a table on the mere and record the scores of the individual players. (The umpire notched the runs on a stick but for the team only). Dots signified runs, to be added together when the batter was out. Brother Joseph did more than was needed -he recorded whether the batsman was bowled, caught or run out. It is this account by the brother, found among the Alcester archives in the County Record Office, which has given us such a local insight into the early 15th century.

Bidford were in first, with a three hour limit on their innings (Brother Joseph had the hourglass) but they did not need it. At half an hour past one of the clock their 11th batter was out. This was a good time for both teams to eat the lunch they had brought with them and for Master John to check the number of his notches with Brother Joseph's addition of his individual runs. Over the meal and the generous quantity of drink available at the ale table, the crowds of spectators were excitedly chatting about the new Alcester bowler who had accounted for six Bidford men. He had bowled in three spells, ten baits per spell: at first his deliveries came straight on to the bat and the batter had smartly smacked them away. His second and third spells were very different - the deliveries pitched a couple of feet in front of the bat and while some went straight on, others seemed to swerve to the left, with the result that if the batsman hit them they often reared into the air giving easy catches to the fielders. Alcester's other bowlers did well but as brother Joseph's record shows, it was young Simon Lyndraper who had put Alcester in a favourable position.

Le Jeu de Criquette. Octave of Holy Cross Day 1423.

Tally of Xl men of Bidford Super Avon.

Joseph's writing latinised the Christian names: here they are in English.

The tally of the XI men of Alnecestre started disastrously. Bidford, too, had a new bowler, Thomas Grevil, whose speed almost equalled that of Simon but whose deliveries kept straight. It was the speed which undid Alnecestre's first two batters but John le Smith had a good eye and a strong arm and several times the ball flew with great speed to the mere: on three occasions John was able to notch five.

Tally of Xl men of Alnecestre

The men of Alnecestre beat the men of Bidford by xxx notches.

Signed by umpire John and scribe Joseph.

It is a great pity that we do not have any other score cards for the men of Alcester until the present century but local legend has it that their annual game with Bidford died out and it was not until the late 17th century that the Alcester team played an annual game against the men of Spernall: this was probably accounted for by the Rector of Spernall, a sports-loving man, the Reverend Henry Teonge, who had been a cavalier in the time of the troubles and who revealed in his diary that, when he was chaplain on one of Charles II's ships, he played criquet at Aleppo in the Middle East with the British residents there.Our present cricket club, we have no doubt, will deposit their score books and minutes with the County Record Office, so that 500 years on, men will be able to see that in the 20th century an ancient game was in good hands locally.

Autumn 1993 Index