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Superstars Cricket Club was formed in 1987 and can trace its
origins back to the late 1970s and early 1980s and a team called the Marsham Street Casuals which was
mainly composed of staff from DOE's (Department of the Environment) Royal Parks Division. Evening twenty
over and occasional afternoon forty over matches were played at Regents Park and Wandsworth Common. Opposing
teams were from other DOE/DOT (Department of Transport) divisions such as GLRT (featuring future Superstar
Phil Patten) and Highways,
and from other Government Departments and Agencies who had a working relationship with Royal Parks. These
included amongst others Ancient Monuments, Saville Row, DTI and Home Office.. |
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Players from these early years included Mark Rolls (captain),
Bob Treacher, Keith Hamer (wk), Frank Blewer, Neil O'Connor, Rick Kennedy, Brian Oatway, Ray Denham,
Neil Stanworth, Rene Daniels, Barry Fitzgerald, Steve Brandl, Andy Wilkinson, Steve Crossthwaite,
Ray George, Steve A'Court, David Levell and John Doyle. Other MSC regulars who went on to play for Superstars
included Pete Frost, Steve Carter
(wk) and Mike Kamellard.
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The name Superstars was coined because most of the team
participated in a year long 30 event multi-sport competition loosely based on the
Superstars TV show, which explains the rather arrogant
sounding name! This completion ran annually between 1980 and 1990 and featured such athletic sports as Cribbage, Yahtzee, Monopoly and Drinking! |
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In 1987, seven formal fixtures against BOCs (Bunch of Counts,
or something like that, this is a family friendly website and my hearing isn't great) were arranged by
Pete Frost and he became Superstars CC first captain and organiser (because nobody else wanted to do it). Games
were played at Greenwich Park (as we had a contact called Vince Rossiter) with the occasional return to
Regents Park. Future club icons Ken Block and
Steve Meyler joined at this time. Fixtures against BOCs became
an annual contest. By 1988 statistics were regularly compiled and a
club resembling the one we have now was taking shape. |
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The club grew becoming more organised, recruiting better
players like Barry Gigg, Mike Taylor
and Matt Conway to name but three [Ed - if these were better players
how bad were the previous lot?!?!!] and establishing a rota of new opposing teams. Regular opponents in the
late 1980s and early 1990s included the aforementioned BOCs, John Doyle's Dodgers (I wonder what happened to them?..)
, DoE Stats (who if they had continued your correspondent would have played for), Highways Agency, and
sister club OSD - who merged with Superstars in the late 1990s because players were retiring.
Home matches were played first at Greenwich and then later at the Chiswick Sports Ground. |
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The players from this time included Rich Baker (touted as our
best player ever), Gary Tavender (the great white hope), Tom Wilson (a very slow bowler who the team took
bets on which ball, 1-24, he would lose his run), Steve Carter
(an entertainer, but not due to the high quality of his cricket),
Tony Whitrod (a footballing superstar who is (at time of writing)
the only person to score a 100, 50 and take 5 wickets for the club), Gary Batholomew and Linden Francis. |
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In 1992, Pete left
London to work in Hastings and passed the captaincy to Ken Block. Ken threw himself into the organisational
responsibilities of the job expanding recruitment and arranging new fixtures (including one against
the Met Police after being stopped on the way home from a cricket match!) and thus began
a new and golden era for the club. |
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The club first toured in 1996,
raising money for the Civil Service Benevolent Fund. The tour was to Lancashire and stories from
when these fine gentlemen visited ooop north are still part of Superstars' folklore.
The first tour line up was- |
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Tour became a regular feature of the season with early tours to Yorkshire,
North Devon and Worcestershire. We even went abroad when in May 2000 we visited Wales
- which well as a cricket tour was a good opportunity for players to realise how lucky we are here in the developed world
and to have things like electicity etc (ho ho Steve!). |
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In the late 2000s with Ken unfortunately unwell Paul Gaught took over much of the work Ken had done
arranging fixtures. The club began to struggle for teams occasionally, especially for afternoon matches and so the fixture list
was slightly trimmed but still at a pretty impressive 30 matches. |
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In 2010 the friendly rivalry that exists between the club and
Dodgers was 'formalised', when a trophy was first presented to the
winners of the series between the two clubs. The trophy (below) was named the Ken Block Trophy,
after the Superstars Legend and was (unfortunately) first won by Dodgers in 2010.
Thankfully Superstars have won the trophy occasionally since! |
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2012 was the wettest season in Superstars History with half the matches rained off
and the first ever completely washed out tour, cleverly named the Dampshire tour by Jason.
Luckily we were able to return to Hampshire in 2013 under sunny skies and played probably
our most glamorous fixture ever against Hambledon a team who have
beaten England 29 times. Although we lost that match the team (and weather) was inspired in 2013 with a
long unbeaten run at the end of the season and Will Walker scoring 2 centuries in 5 weeks
(against Dodgers and Weasels). |
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The club florished in the 2010s with new players joining the club and full
teams being sent out in most occasions. The club was playing around 30 games against a wide spread of teams including
the popular LT Dinos, DEFRA Allstars and Hounslow Leisure. Over this period there were
a suspicious number of tied matches with some named suspects and
a legendary April Fool effort. |
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At this time Alok Singh became a record breaking bowler,
by matching (2014) and then beating (2015) Ken Block's 37 wickets in the 1998 season and producing two 6 wicket spells,
in successive tour matches, against Halstead in 2014 and Bishop's Cannings in 2015.
Some the great innings of this time were made by hard hitting batsman Vijay Anand including
a memorable 61 not out (in 34 balls) in the club's most glamorous ever game versus Hambledon. There were two rather different proud moments
for the club in this time, firstly the charity 6-a-side tournaments originated by Paul Gaught and his partner Penny which have raised
a lot of money for good causes while Superstars were mentioned on
national institution Test Match Special's Ask The Umpire slot. |
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In 2017 Superstars played their first ever "test match" with a two day match, against a rather
familiar looking opposition, in West Malling. The highlight of the 2019 season was
a hat trick for legendary spinner Mike Duggan. Unfortunately the 2020 season
was greatly affected by the COVID global pandemic, but despite this Superstars still managed to get onto the field 15 times which was a great
effort by all concerned. |
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