The club currently has nine Life Vice Presidents who have all made a significant contribution to the club over a number of years. For many of those currently on the club’s committee, and for those still playing for the club who are in their 40s and 50s, there is a group of people who they would undoubtedly credit for helping the club start its journey in the 1990s to where it is today. That group would include John Sutton, Dave Allen, David Parish, Gwynne Mack and the Foss Brothers amongst others, and it would also certainly include two of our current Life Vice Presidents, John and Jenny Nash!! John was Chair for many years from the mid 90s while Jenny was Social Secretary at the same time as well as a near constant presence around the club.

John’s long association with Upminster began when he joined the club as a 15-year-old in 1965: “I was brought to the club by Bob (Hill). I was still at school at the time and Bob was one of my teachers. I started out in the 3rd XI, and my debut was against a side called the Rose and Crown which was quite an introduction!! David Parish had also joined at the start of that season, and I went on to play for the threes for the rest of the year with Bob as captain and wicket keeper. All the games were friendlies then and I didn’t play any competitive league cricket until we went into the league many years later.”

There were many good players and big characters at the club at that time, some of whom went on to play for the club for many years and whose names would be known to many of those still playing today: “There was Keith Martin, Stan Eve, Roger Cobill, John Woodrow, Don Webster who lives not far from us, Dave Cook who was a good wicket keeper but a very good golfer and so golf took over for him, and Colin Hart. Stan was a character shall we say, but I was very lucky as he wouldn’t normally coach anybody, but I got on the right side of him, and he coached me and he used to tell me I had the sweetest leg glance he had seen.

“We had a game at Forest Hill in the late 70s when Colin Hart was playing, and when we went out to field Robin Dales had said if we bowled them out for less than 15 he would buy the beers all evening as we had been bowled out for that score a couple of years previously and Nobby (Colin) and David Parish went and bowled them out for 14.”

Jenny first began going to the club with John in 1969 and within a year had started to become more involved with things off the pitch, and by the 1980s she was organising the club’s annual tour to North Devon, taking on the role from another of our Vice Presidents, Brian Peters: “Back then we used to stay in the Park Hotel in Barnstaple town centre, opposite the leisure centre, but within a few years we had become a little to boisterous, so we had to move on to the Barnstaple Hotel. I think back then it was me and a few others who were the worst behaved, but we never used to offend anyone. Roger Cobill used to stay in a hotel at Instow but one year we persuaded him to stay at the Park Hotel with the rest of us. My friend Casey got hold of the master key which opened all of the rooms. We got into Roger’s room, and Roger was a complete perfectionist with everything. We changed all of his pairs of socks over and things like that, and then we cling-filmed over his toilet!! We used to do lots of silly things like getting the little bomb things and putting them in Cobblers’ (Dave Cobill's) cigarettes and getting tea bags from the joke shop that made your tea go blue and putting them into Brian Peters’ tea!!”

The tours, which were legendary amongst club members for years, visited some great places with the cricket played at some lovely grounds and plenty of socialising taking place off the pitch as John recalls: “On the Monday we used to play at Chulmleigh, which was legendary. I remember being outside the pub, the Globe which is sadly no longer there, standing on the window-sill singing me heart out and I had split my eye open but had no idea I had done it until I walked back into the pub, and everyone was in a panic as there was blood everywhere!! The Guv’nor of the pub absolutely loved us being there every year. One year Clive Greenwood was there, and he asked the Guv’nor for a pint of the local cider, which was proper stuff. The Guv’nor told him it was too much to serve by the pint so gave him a half, and then another half. He had four or five halves, but when Clive went to get up off his stool his legs wouldn’t work!! We didn’t see him at all on the Tuesday!! Tuesday, we used to play North Devon at Instow, Wednesday was Braunton which was a lovely place and in their heyday they would have four midweek games against touring sides and Thursday was Westward Ho! where there would sometimes be a crowd of a couple of hundred leaning on the railings at the top end watching the game. They were fantastic places to play cricket, but even better when I was too old to play cricket were the fantastic places to play golf like Royal North Devon. There were sheep and horses all over the course roaming free.”

Jenny went on to explain how the game against Sparkford, on Friday’s return journey to Essex, which would become a permanent fixture on the tour, first came about: “We played one year at a place called Congresbury, near Bristol, and then the following year we didn’t have a game on the Friday. Brian Peters had spoken to someone who said there was a Benefit Match at Sparkford and Joel Garner was playing so we headed there to watch and then we got the fixture with them from there. We also had one year where we couldn’t play at Chulmleigh because of the foot and mouth outbreak, so we played at a village called Hatherleigh. It was quite a long way, but we went to a pub in the village after the game and some old girl came and sat next to me and told me my fortune!!”

Jenny took on the role of Social Secretary at the club in the early 80s, and she stayed in the role for many years, being assisted from the early 90s by another of our current Vice Presidents, Wendy Emes. Jenny and Wendy organised a number of the club’s Dinner and Dances at places like West Lodge, The Plough (Bulphan), Orsett Hall and the New World Inn. It was then 1994 when John took on the job as Chair of the club and the next few years saw the club make enormous progress in many ways. John recalls how the Matchplay Team of 1996, who reached the final of the competition, helped build up momentum at the club: “One of my memories looking back then was the Mobil (Matchplay) Team. They were such a good bunch of lads. I’m not saying they were the best side but to get through and play Ilford was tremendous. And that final was one of the best days out I have had, and it was topped off by everyone going back to the club and batting on. It was a phenomenal day, absolutely phenomenal. I also remember the group game against Goodmayes where I was umpiring, and I told Middle (Paul Middlemiss) that he had to take the Beast (John Curtis) off as he was going to kill someone. The wicket was so bad, and this lad came in and he was tiny and he went down to face the ball, and his helmet just fell over his face. Beast was too quick for them on a wicket like that!!

“Our wicket had also been bad, and Sutts (John Sutton) came in and started work on the square and things improved and a few of us joined in and carried that on, and I look at it now and we have someone who really does know what they are doing, and the wicket now is an absolute road.

“All of a sudden with the wicket improving people started to return to the club. Matt Ryan, Hoggy (Paul Hogg) and others like that came back and we had a pretty decent side and then for 1999 we went into the Shepherd Neame League (now the Hamro Foundation League) from the Morrant League.”

While in recent year’s John and Jenny have not been as closely involved with the club on a day-to-day basis as they once were, it is clear they still care deeply about the club, and both are pleased to see the club doing so well and pleased to have been able to come and enjoy seeing the new pavilion, as John explained: “The pavilion is now arguably one of the best cricket club pavilions in the South East. The room upstairs gives an absolutely stunning view. It’s a fabulous place now and it’s nice when we have been down there that those serving behind the bar (Izzy and Amy) knew who we were!! There have been a lot of great characters at the club over the years, but it’s amazing to see those who played together all them years ago grow up and now be running the club. It’s unusual to see a group who have come through playing together like that and almost all of them have stayed together all this time.”