Club History
Old Paulines are former pupils of St Paul’s School, situated on the banks of the River Thames in London. The school was founded in 1509 by the Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral, John Colet, with the object of providing a good education, particularly in “Latyn and Greke” to children of all nations. The number of pupils was originally set at 153, supposedly the number of the miraculous draught of fishes, and to this day there are still 153 foundation scholars, who are entitled to wear a silver fish in their lapel, out of a total of 850 pupils.
Although cricket has been played at the school for over 150 years, there was no Old Pauline Cricket Club as such until our present ground at Thames Ditton in Surrey was purchased in 1929. Up until then there had been sporadic matches involving former pupils and the school produced at least three international players in Percy Fender and the Reverend Tom Killick (England) and Reggie Schwartz (South Africa).
In the thirties the club attracted many fine cricketers and rapidly became recognised as one of the top London sides. Prior to the Second World War the captaincy alternated between Bob Dixon and John Farrell Senior. The former was largely responsible for keeping cricket going at Thames Ditton during the war, aided and abetted by groundsman Jack Arthur. Jack doubled as Corporal Quartermaster for the Home Guard unit who took over our pavilion, which did no harm to our bar profits.
Post war again revealed the club to be a force to be reckoned with, particularly under the captaincy and later chairmanship of Tony Barter. The commencement of leagues in the early seventies saw OPCC win their Surrey division, a feat unrepeated until 2005. The club remained strong however, especially under the chairmanship of the late John Farrell Junior who sadly passed away recently, Peter King, Ray Burton and the current chairman, Jamie Lyons.
Currently the club fields three league sides on a Saturday and two sides playing friendlies on Sundays, with Colts matches arranged in the summer holidays for boys at the school. The current 1st XI captain, Alex Duncan, has the support of some strong recent school leavers, many of whom toured South Africa in 2005, and Sri Lanka in 2008. The tour party comprised members of most teams with many being regular in the First XI in the Surrey County League and the 2nd XI in the Surrey Championship. In common with many “old boys” clubs, friends are welcome to play, despite having no connection to the school, and this is reflected in the makeup of the teams. The Club tries to tour every other year and has recently visited Kenya, Sri Lanka, Barbados and South Africa. In addition, many mini-tours are organized by social sides to locations such as Lincolnshire and Norfolk.
Our ground at Thames Ditton is one of the finest in Surrey with two cricket pitches and a magnificent clubhouse, health club, junior centre, swimming pool and 6 squash courts, operating under the name Colets, after the schools founder. It is a large enterprise and in the close season many cricketers play for one of the Old Pauline 6 rugby teams or 4 soccer teams.
