Interested in playing cricket or other sports?

Old Bostonian Association Cricket Team 1965

As you should be aware by now, the 2014 football match between the "old boys" and Boston Grammar School will take place on 3 April at the school. See the relevant article for more details if you want to be a spectator - I believe that we now have enough players and officials.

Together with the annual General Knowledge Quiz, ably MC'd by Richard Anderson, and the Snooker Tournament, which, following the death of its previous organiser, Paul Mould, failed to take place in 2013, the football match makes up the group of recently held competitions between the "old boys" and the school.

In the past there were other competitions: cricket, tennis and golf come to mind but there were probably others.

The Old Bostonian Association President, Peter Sharman, tells me that someone has shown an interest in organising a cricket match. There's no date for it yet, nor even a guarantee that it will happen, but if you might be interested in taking part, please indicate you interest to Peter, either by email (president@bostonian.org.uk) or via his Facebook account - he is a member of the Boston Grammar School Alumni group at Facebook.

If cricket isn't your thing, or even if it is, perhaps you could think whether you might be able and willing to organise a competition between the "old boys" (under the name of the Old Bostonian Association, but not necessarily involving only member of the association) and the school. While it can certainly be a sporting, event, it doesn't have to be. Again, send any suggestions to Peter Sharman, you could add a comment to this post, or if you're a member of the Facebook group, why not start a discussion there and see if there is interest in your idea.

Just a footnote about the snooker, while, as indicated above, the death of Paul Mould put a spanner in the works of the annual tournament, a new organiser was appointed in 2013 and apart from running out of year, there was another reason for the competition not taking place: Nigel Wainwright was unable to raise a school team. A proposal was made to have a competition between "young" old boys and "more senior" old boys, so if this situation continues, we could be looking for even more snooker players than usual when this year's competition is being organised.

Cyril Herbert George Bland - One of us after all

Sussex county cricket team of 1897

Some time ago I blogged about Cyril Bland and said "he could be the only first class cricketer to come out of Boston Grammar School (contact me if you know different)".

Cyril played for Sussex in the 1890s and early years of the 20th century, and ended his own life in an obviously carefully planned suicide near Boston in 1950. You can read more about his life and death in the OBA wiki.

Dick Massingham - Obituary

BGS Old Boys Cricket Team 1965 with Dick Massingham
on the front row, second from the right

Richard "Dick" Massingham

Dick passed away peacefully at Pilgrim Hospital on 4 April 2013, aged 85 years.

While Dick was not a Member of the Old Bostonian Association he played both cricket and football for the Old Boys teams.  For many years he was Registrar for Births Marriages and Deaths in Boston and was also a well respected local football referee.

Cyril Herbert George Bland

There are times when it's quite obvious when something is going to be interesting to people and there are times when you get personal satisfaction from something but you're not sure whether anyone else will be at all interested. This is one of the latter times and I apologise if you aren't interested.

Sussex county cricket team of 1897

For quite a while I have known about Cyril Herbert George Bland and I've found out various things about him along the way. Most notably, he could be the only first class cricketer to come out of Boston Grammar School (contact me if you know different). He played for Sussex in the 1890s and early years of the 20th century.

The more I found out about him, the more I wondered what he looked like, beyond David Frith's description  in his book Silence of the Heart: Cricket Suicides as "Personable, wirily built and with ears that stuck out". Finally, today I found a photograph of the 1897 Sussex county cricket team which included Cyril.

As you will guess from the title of David Frith's book, Cyril Bland committed suicide, drowning himself at Cowbridge, Boston in 1950.

The photograph is shown here. I have also included the list of people on it in the OBA Wiki entry for Cyril Herbert George Bland.