Following the success of last year’s cricket match between the New Broughtonians and Broughton Gifford, there will be a re-match Sunday July 15 at 1pm when Broughton Gifford hope to get their revenge for the loss inflicted upon them twelve months ago.
The fixture was part of last year’s Frome Festival and was the brainchild of Martin Bax – the Festival’s President. It formed part of the celebration of the life and works of Edward Thomas who died at the battle of Arras in 1917.
Thomas was a frequent visitor to Broughton Manor in the years before the war as a guest of Arnold and Clifford Bax, who organised a cricket team – The Old Broughtonians. A surviving score card from a match in August 1912 against Broughton Gifford, shows Edward Thomas participating – although as he only scored two runs and did not bowl, perhaps his cricket was not as good as his writing!
The 1912 match was a pretty low scoring affair with a total of 159 runs in the two innings played by each side. In comparison, the re-match in 2017 saw over four hundred runs scored with lots of 4s and 6s struck by batsmen of both teams. Proof that cricket is now a batsman’s game, I suppose!
The new Broughtonians will again feature six Baxes, even without Martin Bax who will be rested for this match due to his many other sporting commitments. For Broughton Gifford, the team will again be captained by Tom Gerrish, great grandson of Charles Gerrish who played (along with his two brothers) and lost in 1912. His team will be hoping that on 15 July 2018 it will be third time lucky.
The match, on the common at Broughton Gifford next to the Bell Inn, starts at 1pm.This is a change from the published time in the Frome Festival brochure and on their website requested by the Bax team in order to finish by 7 pm. They apologise to the Festival team for the alteration.
