Some recollections by BCC’s first secretary

When a handful of enthusiasts from the English-speaking world got together to discuss the possibility of founding a cricket club in Berne, it at first seemed to me that this was probably another excuse to enjoy a few beers in a local pub, rather than a genuinely serious proposition. After all, how many of Switzerland’s (at that time) 6 million inhabitants had even heard of cricket? Where would we be able to play? Where would we be able to procure all the necessary equipment? Would there even be enough interested people for us to put together a team of (at least) eleven players? And how would we finance this endeavour?

Once the decision was taken to go ahead with the project, I (in retrospect, perhaps somewhat rashly) volunteered to enquire whether it would be possible for us to use the Marzilimoos school sports ground – a largish field situated alongside the river Aare. This facility was the home ground of the local field hockey club, Berner HC 1945, of which I was secretary at that time. Much to the displeasure of some of the members of Berner HC, the authorities gave their approval – and I suddenly became something of a persona non grata! A significant first step in the formation of Berne Cricket Club had now been taken. A committee had meanwhile been formed, fees were agreed on, members and supporters were recruited and we now had somewhere to play. The next step was to procure all the necessary equipment.

To play cricket you need a fairly large field, of course: there are no official fixed dimensions, but a cricket ground’s diameter usually varies between 450 and 500 feet (137 to 150 metres). To my knowledge, no one actually measured the Marzilimoos ground, but everyone seemd to be happy with the venue, so we went ahead and signed the contract. One of the problems we then faced concerned the length of the grass. Swiss groundsmen don’t like to cut grass short – a problem for hockey players as well as for cricketers. However, captain Peter MacLaverty resolved to rectify the situation in that, on the afternoon prior to our inaugural match (against Basel CC), he turned up with a hand-pushed lawn mower with the intention of at least cutting the grass short where the pitch was to be placed. He was confronted by an extremely irate groundsman who chased him off in no uncertain terms. Clearly, BCC would have to obtain a cricket mat! Easier said than done...

The matting we eventually obtained was the coconut variety, which required no installation. It just had to be rolled out. Somehow or other, all the necessary equipment was procured (probably from the UK by Peter MacLaverty): bats, balls, wicketkeeper’s pads and gloves, batsmen’s pads and gloves, stumps, bails, a scorebook, a scoreboard, an enormous cricket bag - and of course boxes to protect those delicate parts.

The Marzilimoos ground was not ideal: the school buildings (and windows) were a little too close for comfort, especially when a batsman of Louis Adhihetty’s or Peter MacLaverty’s calibre was at the crease. We had to improvise in a number of ways: for example, because of the shape of the ground (rectangular instead of oval), batting was only possible from one end. And because the batting end was too close to the fence at the edge of the ground, we had (at least in the early days) to halve the number of runs over the very short boundary behind the wicket. We were not allowed to mark any part of the boundary at all, so whether a ball was hit for four or six often had to be left at the discretion of the umpire.

As is the case with most sports, refereeing and umpiring tend to be unpopular duties. Usually, players from both sides “volunteered” to perform this far from easy task. Here, fair play was the key and things usually ran smoothly enough.

Organising fixtures was sometimes tricky – here we had to arrange things around the Berner HC schedule, which of course had priority. The same applied to training sessions, which had to be held on evenings when the hockey club was not present. There were no nets, of course, so we used the long-jump run-up track instead. I think it was rubberised, which made it rather bouncy at times, but it was better than nothing, except when the ball leapt up and whacked you on the head!

Initially, things were informal (league and cup games would only be introduced a few years later), so the first matches against the handful of teams in Switzerland at that time were “friendlies” (though that didn’t mean they weren’t fiercely contested, of course!). These were often festive occasions and were attended by a surprisingly large number of supporters, wives, girlfriends... and we often also spotted passers-by peering through the fence with puzzled looks on their faces. Tea and sandwiches (and sometimes samosas) were provided between the innings. We were often short of available players in those early years: I well recall receiving phone calls from Peter Mac very early on Sunday mornings asking me if I would be available to play that day in Geneva or somewhere.

Cricket is now highly organised in Switzerland. There is a national association. There are leagues, cup competitions, festivals (e.g. the annual Lyceum Alpinum Zuoz Cricket Festival), junior competitions, T20 competitions, national men’s and women’s squads – and even transfer regulations! From its modest beginnings, cricket in Switzerland has developed in a way none of us back then in the late 1970s could ever have dreamed of!

Keith Hewlett,
Secretary-Berne CC Fouding Committee

article: Immensee, March 2021