Brigands 1988-2026 Thirty-nine summers, 946 fixtures, 891 of them finished and the rest abandoned due to rain. We have combined the archives of Lovett-Turner, Peach and Henderson with results from 1988 to the end 2026. The record - 316 won, 292 drawn, 279 lost, four tied. - The all-time win rate is 35.5% of matches played. - Best season on the books: 2022. Seventeen wins from twenty-eight. - Worst: 1990. Two wins from twenty-five. - Most defeats in a summer: 1989, fourteen fr

In the Summer of 1976 it did not rain. The Oval was baked white, and Viv Richards made 829 runs in four Tests. Some summers the weather and one cricketer's form are memorable. 2026 as the hottest summer on record at Broadhalfpenny Down and Jake Peach broke records. He played 15 games, made 579 runs at 96.50 and took 33 wickets at 11.09, conceding 3.93 an over. Peach took the season's only hat-trick and was the first player to achieve Bernard Marshall's double of 300 runs and

The road into Hambledon still feels like it narrows towards something special. A bend, a hedge, the Bat and Ball, then Broadhalfpenny Down opens out like a stage, the cradle of cricket under an open Hampshire sky. That sense of occasion is exactly what powered the charity fixtures staged there between the Broadhalfpenny Brigands and the Lord’s Taverners between 1960 and 1972: 13 matches, watched by crowds who travelled from far and wide, the boundary edge lined with spectator

Trevor Chappell rolled the ball along the ground at the MCG on 1 February 1981 and won the match. It was entirely within the Laws. Maradona punched the ball past Shilton in Mexico City in 1986 and the goal stood, because the referee missed it. Cameron Bancroft went into his pocket for some sandpaper at Newlands in 2018 and tried to improve the swing of the cricket ball. Every so often somebody arrives with an idea outside the spirit of the game. At Broadhalfpenny Down this we

During Cup Final Grandstand in 1979, the impish Des Lynam set viewers a riddle. What is brought to the FA Cup Final every year, but never used? I thought about that on the way to Broadhalfpenny Down for the last game of the Brigands season, after the hottest summer on record and the first I can remember without a ball lost to rain. In my bag was my valued Brigands sleeveless sweater. I have carried it to every game this year and haven't used it once. As a boy I loved Cup Fina

England have just beaten Pakistan 3-0, a Test series settled with the efficiency of an operation that travels with more support staff than players: analysts, a spin coach, a nutritionist, somebody employed to deliver throwdowns. The modern professional just has to turn up and play. At Broadhalfpenny Down this week, it was different; most of the players had other jobs to do. The occasion was the 250th anniversary of the third stump. In 1775 Chertsey's Edward "Lumpy" Stevens b

The visitors lived up to their name, sauntering onto Broadhalfpenny Down seemingly carefree that they had arrived without an umpire, scorer (nor even a conventional scorebook!) or a full team – the 11th man arriving half an hour adrift. So the hosts,accommodating as ever, supplied the missing officials and let the Optimists bat first, hoping they would at least rally to make a good game of an unpromising start. A limited overs match was agreed and the visitor’s opener D Fox

Two hundred and fifty years ago, the forebears of the Brigands were arguing about whether to introduce a third stump, while the forebears of the Butterflies were fighting over America. In August 1776, the Hambledon Club were debating matters across the road at the Bat and Ball; the two-stump wicket had been letting bowlers down for years, and a third stump was agreed on the grounds that it would shorten the game. At the same time, politicians who had progressed from one of th

The Nursery of English Cricket On this day in 1970, the South Yorkshire Times published the Summer Holiday notes of one of its cricket-loving journalists, Alan Banks. He covers the ground's history, the characters that performed here, and, like many visitors, bowls an imaginary ball in his mind's eye. Alan Banks, published 22 August 1970

At the end-of-season dinner at the Rose Bowl marking the Brigands' golden jubilee in 2009, chairman John Musters announced the batting prize like this: "At 16 years old, the future of the club is in the hands of players like Jake Peach; and what's more he has younger twin brothers - so who knows, in four or five years' time we might have father and all three sons playing together in the same side!" He was right about everything except the timescale. It took another 17 years,

On the final morning at Headingley in July 1948, England declared on 365-8 and set Australia 404 to win in 345 minutes. Nobody had ever chased 400 to win a Test match. The pitch was worn, taking spin and bounce, and England had run the heavy roller over it for good measure. The Yorkshire papers had Australia out by lunch. Instead Arthur Morris made 182, Don Bradman 173 not out, the pair added 301 in a little over three and a half hours, and Australia won by seven wickets with

On Sunday 6 September, Broadhalfpenny Down marks 250 years since cricket gained its third stump; and we need volunteers to help the day run properly. The story is worth knowing. In 1775, Chertsey's Edward "Lumpy" Stevens sent three deliveries clean between John Small's two stumps without so much as brushing the bail. Not out, said the law. Lumpy was robbed, said everyone watching. Within months the game's leading figures - men who met and argued across the road at the Bat & B