In 1986, when I was Chairman of the Club, I asked several of the oldest members to write down their recollections of outstanding events, remarkable matches or interesting personalities. At the time the intention was simply to keep any replies in a safe place, for the benefit of future members. In the event, the responses went far beyond my hopes, both in quantity and content. The 'star' find was 'Hacker' Johnson, then in his eighties. Within a week of receiving the request, he had filled a forty-page exercise book with fascinating reminiscences, beginning with his first visit to the ground in 1912. He followed this up with many informative letters. Similarly, George Lovegrove, who had written an article on the history of the Club in 1955 for the 150th Anniversary Souvenir Handbook, began a most helpful correspondence, covering mainly the inter war years. Other old members followed suit.
These recollections raised a number of questions and prompted me to look at back numbers of the local paper, the Kentish Times. Here I was particularly fortunate, as copies from 1873 to the present day are available only a short distance away at the Bexley Local Studies Centre at Hall Place. Initially I intended only to dip into a selection of these papers, but I soon became engrossed and eventually read every copy. The papers carried detailed reports of virtually every match played, accounts of Annual General Meetings and other local news relevant to the Club. In these circumstances, and with the encouragement of fellow members, I decided to write a history of the Club. My aim was to present it as a story, rather than as a mass of statistics.
For newspaper reports prior to 1873 I visited the national Newspaper Library at Colindale and spent many absorbing days there searching early nineteenth century and late eighteenth century papers for references to Bexley. I also consulted many rare old cricket books at the British Library and at Lord's Library, and in the specialist cricket collections at Plumstead and Manchester University Libraries.
Unfortunately the Club itself does not have much in the way of old records, many old Minute books, match posters, score books and other memorabilia having been lost over the years. But it does have a remarkable collection of photographs, dating back to 1866 and a number of these have been used as illustrations in the present book. Individual members have provided material from their personal collections and special mention must be made of the scrapbooks and photographs belonging to two families having long associations with the Club, the Kelseys and the Jeffrey’s.
The Club has now started to collect items of historical interest and I am currently the custodian of this property. It is hoped that the publication of this History will encourage readers who have material relating to the Club to donate it or allow it to be photocopied.
Finally, I should like to thank all those who have helped in the preparation of this book. I apologise for any errors and omissions in the text.
RBH
Bexley, Kent