Simon Hinks: my childhood start in cricket at The Green Wall, Gravesend

I was no exception in that I came from a cricketing family, my father and uncle played at my local club and to this day a Hinks has played there (Gravesend in Kent) for more than 70 years, via my brother and his sons. Every professional will have memories about either school or club cricket or both as their starting points, providing their enthusiasm, love and interest of the game.

The Green Wall in the title was in fact to be found in the far corner of what was a First Class Ground at Gravesend (until 1971) and had been provided for the tennis section of the club for practice – it also had a horizontal white line showing the height of an imaginary net. The area directly in front was long enough for short form cricket. To the left was the area used by the groundsman to dump his grass cuttings – a rotting compost pile that was hot, smelly and degrading by the hour. To the right were tennis courts and ‘over long on’ was the grass Bowls rink for the ‘enemy’ – the elderly bowlers who had never played cricket, never wanted to integrate with the other sections and always had an issue with car parking and closure days for County matches!

Short form cricket required the obligatory set of metal chairs with canvas seats and backs for stumps, a (stolen) tennis ball, which were in plentiful supply from the tennis club’s errant backhands and pride of place – your very first bat. My bat was like no other, I loved it, worshipped it, cared for it, never ever let anyone else use it and as a result often fought over it. The tennis balls less so particularly after a visit into the grass cuttings.

I am indebted to my fellow players and friends from my road (which backed onto the ground) – Andrew and Kerry, two wonderful allrounders, the latter bowled left arm chinamen from the age of 6 to his mid 20’s at which time he fell out of love with cricket after being whacked by each oppositions third team sloggers mercilessly for years. The former became a policeman – we think on a cricket scholarship as that’s what he spent most of time doing for the Force each summer. Richard and Mark helped make up the rest of the budding junior section, which over time also included Stuart Waterton (Kent and Northants) and Mathew Walker (Kent and Essex, now Kent’s Head Coach).

Hours and hours of practice – really just having fun – creating imaginary teams or pretending to be our heroes – many of whom had signed my little blue autograph book, County players from across the country and all the Kent players from the late 60s and early 70s. The formation of arguably the best Kent team ever. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that ten years later I would be playing alongside some of those all time greats – Knott, Underwood, Luckhurst, Shepherd, Woolmer, having spent time in the junior Kent sides alongside Dilley, Benson, Taylor, Marsh, Aslett, Penn, Ellison and the Cowdreys.

From the Green Wall to Canterbury with Kent and then onto Bristol and Cheltenham with Gloucestershire. Happy Days.

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