Seth Somers Park is a cricket ground in Halesowen,

West Midlands West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...

. It is home to

Halesowen Cricket Club Halesowen Cricket Club is an English cricket club in Halesowen, West Midlands that has four senior Saturday cricket sides. Their 1st currently play in the Birmingham and District Premier League. The 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th & 6th XI's play in the Wor ...

, whose 1st XI play in the Birmingham and District Premier League. The park was used for

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officiall ...

Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see His ...

on two occasions in the 1960s, at which time Halesowen lay in

. In 1964 they beat

Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

by ten wickets, and five years later they beat the same opposition by an identical margin. Two games in the

1986 ICC Trophy The 1986 ICC Trophy was a limited-overs cricket tournament held in England between 11 June and 7 July 1986. It was the third ICC Trophy tournament to be staged, and as with the previous two tournaments, games between the 16 participating teams pla ...

were played at Seth Somers Park:

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

beat

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

by four wickets, while

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark ...

beat

Bermuda ) , anthem = "God Save the King" , song_type = National song , song = " Hail to Bermuda" , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , mapsize2 = , map_caption2 = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = , e ...

by six wickets.

History

Seth Somers Park was built between 1955–57 and officially opened by Lord Cobham on April 27, 1957. Construction of the park was funded by the Seth Somers Trust who leased the ground to Halesowen Cricket Club for free. Worcestershire Second XI played at the ground on a number of occasions between 1950 and 2001, while the recreational Worcestershire Cricket Board team played two

ECB 38-County Cup The National Counties Cricket Association Knockout Cup was started in 1983 as a knockout one-day competition for the National Counties in English cricket. At first it was known as the ''English Industrial Estates Cup'', before being called the ...

games at the ground in 1999 and 2000. In November 2019, Halesowen Cricket Club announced that they had agreed a new 25-year lease to keep Seth Somers Park as their home ground. On March 31, 2021, the club announced via its website that it would be applying to the Seth Somers Trust to rename the ground "The Trevor Argent Memorial Ground, Seth Somers Park" in memory of late chairman Trevor Argent.

Records

First-class

* Highest team total: 276 by Worcestershire v Cambridge University, 1964Same match. * Lowest team total: 79 by Cambridge University v Worcestershire, 1964Same match. * Highest individual innings: 119 by Martin Horton for Worcestershire v Cambridge University, 1964Same match. * Best bowling in an innings: 7-30 by

Jim Standen James Alfred Standen (born 30 May 1935) is an English former professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper in the Football League for Arsenal, Luton Town, West Ham United, Millwall and Portsmouth. He won the FA Cup and the European Cup Win ...

for Worcestershire v Cambridge University, 1964Same match.

Notes

References

Seth Somers Park, Halesowen
from CricketArchive. Retrieved 9 December 2006. Cricket grounds in the West Midlands (county) Halesowen {{England-cricket-ground-stub