Print works cricket club turns 100 years old

A village cricket club, originally formed for the staff at a print works, is celebrating a century of its own.

Purnell Cricket Club, based in Paulton near Bath, played its first match in 1926, growing into a popular pastime for its employees, and later became open to others in and around the village.

At its peak, the club hosted Somerset games and had full-time groundsmen.

Despite the factory closing in 2005, the team kept going, and continues to play in the county league.

The Purnell and Sons Ltd Printing Works was founded by Charles Purnell in 1839 as a small family business. It went on to become, at one point, the biggest in Europe, and at its peak it employed 2,000 local people.

By the 1960s both the print works and its cricket club were booming.

Tony Evans, who worked for the company back then, became a player and a coach, and is now the president of the cricket club.

"We had everything at this club, everything you wanted. There was no problem with money," he said.

"There were two full-time groundsmen, we had Somerset games played down here nearly every year with Viv Richards and Ian [Botham]. We all chased the ball around for Richards, smacking it everywhere!"

The print hit harder times in the coming decades.

The decline was overseen by media mogul Robert Maxwell, who apparently landed his helicopter on the Purnell cricket pitch when he bought the company in the 1980s.

Suffering from what it described as a combination of under investment in new technology and increasingly stiff foreign competition, the print works finally closed in 2005, with the loss of 400 jobs.

The cricket club - which kept its name - kept going, just.

"We didn't think we were going to make 100," said chairman Harvey Burgess.

"We had a big meeting where the club seriously could have folded, but we fought back and the next season we got promotion into the division that we play in today."

He added: "We're on the up now, which is good."

Keeping this village cricket team alive in 2026 is a far cry from a century ago.

The club now relies on people volunteering their time to keep going. Nathan Redwood is not only a player and a coach, but also groundsman and social media manager.

"For most of us it's a lot of hard work," he said.

"It's lots of effort having the ground available and ready - it's not just me, it's also my brother who's the first team captain. He's down here cutting grass, I've got other players that come in and and help out to get games played."

The club is celebrating its centenary with a series of events throughout the cricket season.

Redwood added: "We keep the name [Purnell] going. I never worked at the factory, it's just where I played my youth cricket and the fact that we have that identity is more important to me than than anything else."

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