Summary
The Hawker Centre is a sports ground in Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey. Originally the Hawker's Sports Ground, it was built and owned by the Hawker Aircraft 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, 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 St Paul's Group under a lease by the Borough.[1]
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| Ground information | |||||||||||||
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| Location | Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey | ||||||||||||
| Establishment | 1944 (first recorded match) | ||||||||||||
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| As of 29 August 2010 Source: Ground profile | |||||||||||||
Cricket edit
The first recorded match on the ground was in 1944, when Leyland Athletic played London Counties.[2] The ground hosted its first first-class match in 1946, when Surrey played Hampshire. These first matches were organised to help raise money to repair the damage done to The Oval in the Second World War. 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.[3]
References edit
External links edit
- Hawker's Sports Ground on CricketArchive
- Hawker's Sports Ground on Cricinfo
- Hawker Centre on [YMCA St Paul's group]
51°25′36″N 0°18′29″W / 51.42657°N 0.30797°W