In the summer of 2012 Effingham Cricket Club produced a 1920 team photograph of a match vs Abinger in the hope that we might have club records which would enable identification of some, if not all, of the players in the picture. Unfortunately we had no trace or records of the match and doubts were raised as to the wereabouts or even existence of any comprehensive records of the Club’s progress before the 1970’s. It was felt that a serious attempt should be made to seek out all available information with a view to producing a History of the Club whilst the memories of older members were still reasonably sharp. We agreed to undertake this interesting task and the result is now before you; it is by no means perfect but hopefully we have made the best use of the sometimes limited material available.
Help has been received from a variety of sources and we are particularly grateful to Emma Corke for her guidance concerning the Farrer family and the Abinger Hall Estate. Photographer and Sports Club member, Peter Ruck has also been most helpful in producing the photography needed by our printer.
Probably our most useful work has been to bring together all available correspondence files, old photographs, Minutes of Meetings, etc, and placing them in a permanent archive within the Clubhouse. We are fortunate in having Jan Philpin, our Chairman’s wife, who is a trained archivist, to put everything into it’s proper order. The Archive can then be kept up-to-date for future years.
Mike Woods & Geoff Dunn
June 2013
Since this club history was published, and in preparation for the club's 150th anniversary celebrations, we have discovered that the club was actually founded in 1874 (not in 1870 as was previously believed). We discovered an article in the Surrey Comet published in 1889 detailing the club's averages for the first 15 years.
