Roy Hill dies aged 88

Roy Hill, who in 1950 took the best-ever figures by an OC bowler, has died at the age of 88.

Hill, a brisk right-arm opening bowler, was in the OC side which played one of a handful of matches that summer, against the village on the Common – he smiled when he said that “if you owned a car, you were in the XI”. It had rained heavily overnight and Hill, opening the bowling, recalled the ball “dug in and went all over the place”. He ripped through the Cranleigh batting, taking 9 for 10 as they were bowled out for 41. He admitted that he should have had all ten but Cyril Suter, fielding in the gully, dropped the one man he didn’t dismiss. Suter then added insult to injury by removing the same batsman himself. Hill went on to make an unbeaten 35.

Hill was born in Forest Hill on November 19, 1919 and was in West at Cranleigh between 1933 and 1936. He was in the 1st XI in 1935 and 1936. After leaving he joined Beckenham with several other Cranleighans, including EW Swanton. He recalled a few years ago that Swanton, who had a reputation for pomposity, was called up in 1937 to play for Middlesex against one of the universities. Rather than tell his captain that he was unavailable, Swanton sent telegrams to all his team-mates to say he was unable to play as he had been summoned by his county. Hill was called up into the army at the time of the Munich Crisis in 1938, and served throughout the war, admitting that he “got knocked about a bit in ‘45”. Either side of the war he worked for the London Brick Company.

Sarasota 2007 - Sharks, golf and some dreadful cricket

Rob Merry reports on the second tour of the year, a return to the USA
Click here for tour photos

We travelled to this popular six-a-side tournament in Sarasota, Florida with a mix of youth and the experience offered by captain Henry Watkinson and Mike Chetwode – both of whom had been several times before. A few of us got there a day early to ‘acclimatise’ on the beach. The first night gave us an indication of what was to follow – our thanks to the wonderful hospitality shown by the extended Perry family.
While we were rarely found wanting in the drinking department, it was unfortunately a different story on the cricket pitch. It took the four young guns time to come to grips with the nature of six-a-side (five overs, five different bowlers, limited run-ups, two runs + another ball for wides and no-balls, and an artificial wicket). We failed to get bat on ball often enough, lacked enough big hitting and always had one poor over bowling.

Our first two games were probably against the weakest of the sides in our group and by the time we had found our feet with some strong hitting from both Jonny Gates and Sam Langmead we were up against stronger opposition. In the past we had always reached the quarter-finals but this year it was not to be. Our nightly antics probably had something to do with it and there were some useful players knocking about – Shiv Chanderpaul kindly agreeing to don the OC touring blazer.

Off the pitch we were equally unsuccessful! We had to get more golf balls delivered on our golf outing on what was admittedly a difficult but very impressive and enjoyable course. We did have some success in on a deep-sea fishing trip but whilst we were catching relatively little fish two Americans on our boat caught a shark!
Our partying really came to a head at the gala dinner, where Mac was guest speaker - our failure to make the finals day meant that we had nothing to hold back for. Other highlights included a trip to our sponsors – a local entertainment arena our dubious repute, some great dinners, thanksgiving partying, and the weak dollar!

Everyone enjoyed the trip, despite our cricketing prowess, or lack of it. A big thank you to Sarasota Cricket Club, the other teams and the extended Parry family – who provided wonderful hospitality throughout.

I’m sure that all the youngsters will return and hopefully Henry and Mike will join us. Damien has also lost no time in addressing our cricketing performance. He is spearheading the effort to get a OCCC six a side tournament up and running at Cranleigh sometime next summer – watch this space!