Delighted to announce that former England and Essex captain Graham Gooch will be joining us as our guest speaker on Thursday 27th March 2025, 7.30pm at Manor Park. It’s the second visit we’ve had in recent years by a former England captain following the visit of Mike Brearley in October 2019.

Our 2024/25 programme of events is shaping up nicely with Mark Ramprakash, Ben Bloom, Simon Lister and Jeremy Lonsdale all lined as guests. Details of the March and April 2025 events coming soon.

Due to circumstances beyond our control we’ve had to cancel our February talk on the Ukrainian cricket team with author Jonathan Campion as the shipment of Jonathan’s book, published by Pitch Publishing, has been held up due to the Yemen situation. We’ve been able to move Jonathan’s talk to Thursday 25 April but despite our best efforts we’ve been unable to find a replacement speaker for February.

If possible we will try and slot in another speaker in April, if not then we’ll aim to do it in the autumn. In the meantime we do have former England player Chris Old to look forward to as our next guest, he will be with us on Tuesday 26^th March, 7.30pm at Horsford Cricket Club, hope to see you there.

Stephen Musk’s latest cricket title has just been published by Red Rose Books.

A Giant-Killing at Lakenham. The Minor Counties Defeat The South Africans is Stephen’s account of the thrilling win by 25 runs by the Minor Counties – with seven Norfolk players in the side – against the touring South Africans at the Lakenham Cricket Ground in Norwich in August 1924.

A wonderfully detailed publication with player profiles, photos and scorecards, it’s available from Red Rose Books and is priced at £12, UK post free. For further details see the attached flyer.

Copies, whilst stocks last, are also available direct from Stephen Musk at our talks.

Really looking forward to our Spring programme of talks; we’ve got some great speakers lined up.

On February 20th we’ll be welcoming former England and Middlesex bowler Angus Fraser; on March 23rd James Coyne and Timothy Abraham will be joining us to discuss their book Evita Burned Down Our Pavilion: A Cricket Odyssey Through Latin America’ and rounding off our season on 20th April will be former Essex spinner Ray East.

We’re really looking forward to welcoming former England and Warwickshire spinner Ashley Giles as our guest speaker at Horsford Cricket Club on Thursday 24th November, 7.30pm start. It will be the first time we’ve had one of the players from the 2005 Ashes series visit us, can’t wait to hear Ashley’s memories of the five Tests he played that summer.

It’s great to be back up and running after a two and a half year break because of Covid. Many thanks to everyone who’s supported us by renewing their membership subscriptions or by coming along as a guest to our first two talks; Dean Headley in September and Peter Baxter in October, hope you enjoyed the events.

Special thanks to Horsford Cricket Club for hosting us, we’re really enjoying having Manor Park as our new home.

Norfolk Cricket Society member Stephen Musk has had a number of works published in recent months.

Three Brothers from Brandon, written with the much missed Mike Davage, tells the story of Basil, Rodney and Desmond Rought-Rought who all represented Norfolk in the minor counties championship between the World Wars.

Priced at £10 (post free to UK) it is available from Red Rose Cricket Books, further details here.

Overcoming Stigma in Victorian Cricket: The Remarkable Story of Francis Terry, Canada’s Mad Vicar is, as the title indicates, the quite remarkable story of the man widely regarded to be Canada’s best batter at the end of the 19th century.

Priced at £12 (post free to UK) it is available from Red Rose Cricket Books, further details here.

Bart King of Philadelphia: The Father of Modern Swing Bowling – written with Roger Mann, and including input from former England bowler Bob Cottam on the technical aspects of swing bowling – is the story of Bart King, the greatest US cricketer.

Priced at £25 it is available from Troubador Books, further details here.

Read the Five Star review from cricketweb.net here

Stephen is currently working on an account of the Minor Counties XI which defeated the touring South Africans at Lakenham in 1924.

Norfolk Cricket Society members Stephen Musk and Mike Davage have recently had their work on the life of JOC Orton published by Red Rose Books.

From Nightfighter to Scriptwriter is the story of John Overton Cone “JOC” Orton, an all-round sportsman who representing Norfolk at cricket, hockey and rugby and who also served as an aviator during the Great War. After returning to civilian life Orton became a talented scriptwriter and played an influential role in the British cinema industry working with the likes of Will Hay, Alistair Sim, Arthur Askey, and the Crazy Gang. In 1935-1936 he visited Australia, where he wrote the script for the film The Flying which included a cameo for Don Bradman.

From Nightfighter to Scriptwriter is a limited edition of 50 copies, signed and numbered by Stephen Musk and Mike Davage, it is available online from Red Rose Books: –

RRB website: https://redrosecricketbooks.com/rrb-publications

RRB eBay shop: https://www.ebay.co.uk/str/redrosecricketbooks

We’re really thrilled to have teamed up with Pitch Publishing who have kindly arranged a series of virtual cricket talks throughout the summer and autumn for us and the other cricket societies in the UK.

The opening talk in the series on Friday 29th May featured former Sussex and Middlesex batsmen and now umpire Ian Gould and was hosted by BBC cricket commentator Mark Church.

165 participants enjoyed a fun and insightful evening with topics covered including sandpapergate, DRS and playing with – and umpiring – many of the greats of the game including Imran Khan, Clive Rice, Ricky Ponting and Virat Kohli.

Talks during June include Colin Shindler on Friday 5th, Ashley Gray on Friday 12th and Mark Peel on Friday 26th, all talks start at 7.30pm are broadcast via the Zoom platform.

For details of these talks, plus others in the series, check out the Pitch Publishing website