The Manor Sports Ground, is a

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by str ...

venue in

Worthing Worthing () is a seaside town in West Sussex, England, at the foot of the South Downs, west of Brighton, and east of Chichester. With a population of 111,400 and an area of , the borough is the second largest component of the Brighton and Ho ...

West Sussex West Sussex is a county in South East England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the shire districts of Adur, Arun, Chichester, Horsham, and Mid Sussex, and the boroughs of Crawley and Worthing. Covering an ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. It is home to

Worthing Cricket Club Worthing Cricket Club is a cricket club in the coastal town of Worthing in West Sussex, England. Founded in 1855, the club's first XI plays in the Sussex Cricket League which is the accredited ECB Premier League for Sussex and is the highes ...

History

One of the earliest recorded cricket matches at the Manor Sports Ground was on 17 July 1902 when Sussex Second XI took on Essex Second XI. Since 1924 it has been owned by Worthing Borough Council (formerly Worthing Corporation) and the ground was laid out in consultation with Sussex County Cricket Club. The sports ground is named after Broadwater Manor, the

manor house A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were held the lord's manorial courts, communal meals w ...

of the former manor of Broadwater, which lies some 50 yards to the north. The Manor Ground hosted 43 first-class matches between 1935 and 1964, all of which involved Sussex County Cricket Club. It is hoped that first class cricket may soon return, as since 1999 minor Sussex matches have been played here. The Manor Sports Ground has also hosted the internationally famous Worthing Hockey Festival since 1939. In the 1960s crowds of people attended the Police sports and

tattoo A tattoo is a form of body modification made by inserting tattoo ink, dyes, and/or pigments, either indelible or temporary, into the dermis layer of the skin to form a design. Tattoo artists create these designs using several tattooing ...

event which was held at the ground.

Location

The large expanse of land is enclosed on three sides by housing and the other by a traditional flint wall. The ground lies between two significant north-south routes. The

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Broadwater Road (the Worthing to London road) runs along the west side of the ground. Along the east side of the ground lies the Quashetts footpath, an ancient track which was originally used as a droveway over the

South Downs The South Downs are a range of chalk hills that extends for about across the south-eastern coastal counties of England from the Itchen valley of Hampshire in the west to Beachy Head, in the Eastbourne Downland Estate, East Sussex, in the eas ...

into

the Weald The Weald () is an area of South East England between the parallel chalk escarpments of the North and the South Downs. It crosses the counties of Hampshire, Surrey, Sussex and Kent. It has three separate parts: the sandstone "High Weald" in the ...

. The track seems to have been the basis of Worthing's grid system during the

Romano-British The Romano-British culture arose in Britain under the Roman Empire following the Roman conquest in AD 43 and the creation of the province of Britannia. It arose as a fusion of the imported Roman culture with that of the indigenous Britons, ...

period. The ground's entrance is in Georgia Avenue, a residential road to the south of the ground.

Records

First-class

*Lowest team total: 23 by Sussex v

Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, and the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Av ...

, 1964 *Highest individual innings: 241 by

John Langridge John George Langridge MBE (10 February 1910 – 27 June 1999) was a cricketer who played for Sussex. His obituary in ''Wisden'' called him "one of the best English cricketers of the 20th century never to play a Test match". Born into a crick ...

for Sussex v

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

, 1950 *Most wickets in a match: 15-75 by Ian Thomson for Sussex v

v, 1964

Facilities

The site has two pavilions including one from the inter-war period, 2 cricket pitches, as well as 5 hockey and up to 3 mini football pitches. It takes up an area of .

References