Southend, Garon Park cricket pavilion - geograph

Garon Park is a recreational park and

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 ...

ground in

Southend-on-Sea Southend-on-Sea (), commonly referred to as Southend (), is a coastal city and unitary authority area with borough status in southeastern Essex, England. It lies on the north side of the Thames Estuary, east of central London. It is bordered ...

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and Grea ...

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 currently the home of Old Southendian Football Club and Old Southendian & Southcurch Cricket Club.

Cricket ground

The ground was first used by the Essex County Cricket Club, 1st XI in 2005. The ground hosted two games in 2008, against Glamorgan in the

County Championship The County Championship (referred to as the LV= Insurance County Championship for sponsorship reasons) is the domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales and is organised by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). It bec ...

and

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire (; abbreviated Northants.) is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2015, it had a population of 723,000. The county is administered by two unitary authorities: North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. It is ...

in the Pro40 League. The ground has hosted 3 first-class matches and 3 List A matches.

Game information

Game statistics – first-class

Game statistics – one-day matches

History

The ground was named after the Garon family of Southend who were major retailers in the town for several generations. Norman Garon donated the land to the town in 1885. The Garons opened a chain of shops, cinemas and banqueting suites at a time when rail travel to the town had started to bring in tourists from London. One member of the family, Percy Garon, was decorated for his efforts in World War 1 and awarded the George Medal during World War 2 for fighting fires across Essex. He became chairman of Southend Lifeboat Service and is remembered today by one of the services main boats being named after him.

References

Cricket grounds in Essex Buildings and structures in Southend-on-Sea Essex County Cricket Club {{England-cricket-ground-stub