Nottinghamshire Cricket – Past, Present and Future
2025 Cricket Annual Published
To have the facts, figures and stories not just of the 2024 season but of great players and games of the recent (and not-so-recent) past in one comprehensive book is a great achievement by the editorial team of the 2025 Nottinghamshire Cricket Annual but also a great source of information for the County Club members and supporters.
At 256 packed pages – and packed is surely the right word for the sheer density of information and articles – the Annual, now on sale at £10 from the Trent Bridge Shop and the Ticket Office, reviews every aspect of Nottinghamshire cricket in 2024, including red and white ball games, The Blaze, The Hundred and recreational cricket.
Articles on Jimmy Anderson’s remarkable record at Trent Bridge, on the links with this year’s visitors Zimbabwe and a fascinating account from David Beaumont of what it felt like to be an eight-year-old at the Ashes Test of 1953 are just some of the absorbing features that accompany the statistics and match reviews.
The annual contains a comprehensive summary of the first team including averages, outstanding performances, and partnerships, and extensive reviews of each of the three first team competitions. Full scorecards and reports for all 2024 Notts first and second team fixtures are included. Full coverage is also provided for local league cricket and boys and girls age-group cricket.
There are thirty-two pages of full-colour photographs, including provision for avid autograph collectors, and many more black and white pictures to illustrate key stories.
Editor Mike Goulder has included a warm and fulsome tribute to Luke Fletcher, who left Notts at the end of last season, and pen pictures of new signings for the coming summer.
Steve LeMottee, Heritage Manager at Trent Bridge, has written a comprehensive piece on last year’s heritage activities along with news from the Trent Bridge Library, where members can borrow books on the game and all visitors can enjoy the magazines and features on offer.
Alan Odell reviews the ground tours programme of 2024 and looks forward to a rather different tour pattern in 2025 as the Pavilion re-development hits its stride.
The 2024 programme of speakers at meetings of the Nottingham Cricket Lovers Society (NCLS) is reviewed. One of the 2024 speakers was Tim Crow who is currently in the process of writing the first-ever biography of Clive Rice. He contributes an article in the annual on how Rice ended up arriving at Trent Bridge exactly 50 years ago. There is also an interesting article by Club Psychologist Chris Marshall on his role with Notts and with England.
Published by the NCLS, the Annual is recognised as one of the best cricket yearbooks currently available: “My congratulations to the team that put this yearbook together – Outstanding!’’ – Journal of the Cricket Society
March 2025