Beckenham finally gets Festival status
14.05.26, 09:35 Updated 14.05.26, 09:42
Fred Atkins
First some advice: If you’ve never been before, don’t google “Beckenham Cricket Club.”
This is in nearby Foxgrove Road and although it isn’t far away, people regularly go there by mistake. Although the village/suburb of Beckenham has been hosting Kent since 1886, on and off, they haven’t played there since 1905. On the last time they did, Colin Blythe took 12 for 110 as Kent beat Surrey by 10 wickets.
Head instead for Worsley Bridge Road and the “New” County Ground which has actually been around since the 1920s, when it was the Lloyds Bank Sports Ground. A Kent side including Arthur Fagg and Bob Wilson drew with Gloucestershire here in 1954 but a more memorable game took place here in 1970, when a John Player League match with Lancashire descended into farce.
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Fred Atkins Fred Atkins is a former Kent Messenger sports editor and has written several books, including The Spitfire Diaries, an account of Kent's 2021 season and Monty Panesar's "The Full Monty". He has followed KCCC since 1993 and has covered them for the ECB and Wisden since 2021.