The Hawker Centre is a sports ground in

Kingston-upon-Thames Kingston upon Thames, colloquially known as Kingston, is a town in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, south-west London, England. It is situated on the River Thames, south-west of Charing Cross. It is an ancient market town, notable as ...

, Surrey. Originally the Hawker's Sports Ground, it was built and owned by the

Hawker Aircraft Hawker Aircraft Limited was a British aircraft manufacturer that was responsible for some of the most famous products in British aviation history. History Hawker had its roots in the aftermath of the First World War, which resulted in the ban ...

company who had factories in Kingston-upon-Thames. The ground was known prior to 1948 as the Leyland Motors Ground, due to Hawker leasing their factory to

Leyland Motors Leyland Motors Limited (later known as the Leyland Motor Corporation) was an English vehicle manufacturer of lorries, buses and trolleybuses. The company diversified into car manufacturing with its acquisitions of Triumph and Rover in 1960 a ...

, a lease which expired in 1948. The aircraft factory was demolished in 1990 which alongside storage units were converted into a residential area keeping the sports ground. Since 2001 the ground has been maintained by the

YMCA YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organisation based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It has nearly 90,000 staff, some 920,000 volunteers and 12,000 branches w ...

St Paul's Group under a lease by the Borough.

Cricket

The first recorded match on the ground was in 1944, when Leyland Athletic played London Counties. The ground hosted its first first-class match in 1946, when

Surrey Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...

played

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Berkshire to the north, Surrey and West Sussex to the east, the Isle of Wight across the Solent to the south, ...

. These first matches were organised to help raise money to repair the damage done to

The Oval The Oval, currently named for sponsorship reasons as the Kia Oval, is an international cricket ground in Kennington, located in the borough of Lambeth, in south London. The Oval has been the home ground of Surrey County Cricket Club sinc ...

in the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. A venue for first-class cricket from 1946 to 1953, it hosted first-class cricket for no less than seven teams, with the final first-class match at the ground in 1953 seeing an England XI play a Commonwealth XI.First-Class Matches played on Hawker's Sports Ground
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References

External links

on CricketArchive

on

Cricinfo ESPNcricinfo (formerly known as Cricinfo or CricInfo) is a Sports journalism, sports news website exclusively for the game of cricket. The site features news, articles, live coverage of cricket matches (including Liveblogging, liveblogs and sco ...

Hawker Centre
on MCA St Paul's group {{Surrey CCC Cricket grounds in Surrey British Leyland Surrey County Cricket Club grounds Sports venues in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames Sports venues completed in 1944 YMCA buildings