Timsbury Cricket Club will celebrate 150 years of sport in the village on the evening of Sunday, August 30.
The club’s committee have organised an evening of entertainment, with live music, a casino, a cricket club museum full of club memorabilia, an auction, a raffle, a licensed bar, red carpet selfies and, of course, a cricket tea. Those coming along are asked to dress to impress.
The exact date of the club’s formation remains a mystery, but the Western Gazette on July 25, 1873, reported a match between Timsbury and Radstock. The club moved to its present home on the Recreation Field in 1965, having previously been based on the Glebe field, which is now a housing estate. Over the years it has also played on several other fields in the village, including the school field, which remains the home of the third eleven.
Until 1965 Timsbury ran just one side. That year, a delegation from neighbouring club Farmborough asked to join, and the proposition was unanimously accepted. In its first year, the new team was called Timsbury Nomads and was made up mainly of Farmborough players. Within two years the Nomads label disappeared and it simply became Timsbury first and second elevens.
There have been a number of highlights along the way, none more so than 2006, when the club reached the final of the National Village Cup at Lords. Eight coaches from the village made their way to cricket’s headquarters. Despite the disappointment of a four wicket defeat to Yorkshire side Houghton Main, it proved to be a day never to be forgotten.
Timsbury have also hosted three benefit matches for Somerset players. In 1979, almost a full county side came for Hallam Moseley’s benefit match. Four years later, Brian Rose was the beneficiary, on a day that saw Timsbury make national headlines as the first club to hire a helicopter to dry out the pitch
