Having lived in Church Lane for the past 78 years and having been a member of every section of the club at various times since 1947, I thought it would be a good idea to put some of my own personal memories of the club on paper.
I hope you will find them interesting and not just an old man’s nostalgic ramblings.
PREWAR
Although my father Amos, and my grandfather Eli, laid the first cricket table in the sports field in 1921, my earliest memories of the sports field, were, as a small boy, running across planks laid on the brick foundations to the new brick pavilion after the workmen had knocked off for the day. Also, the demolition of the old wooden cricket pavilion after the new brick pavilion had been completed just prior to the second world war.
My earliest memories of sport at this time were of the football first team playing in their old Black and White striped shirts against Cane Hill Hospital in the Vicarage Field. The cricket team, under captain Slade playing in the sports field, and my brother Bert, playing tennis for the tennis club on the new tennis courts.
WARTIME
One memory that will always stay with me, is of an air raid early in the war, before the army took over the pavilion. There was a cricket match in the field when a terrific barrage started in the direction of Biggin Hill. All the cricketers, except one, ran to take cover in the air raid shelters in the gardens of Church Lane. The one exception being Dick Townley, who was last seen, doing a series of pirouettes, whilst disappearing in a
Southerly direction. It transpired, that he eventually finished up, either by accident or design, in the cellar of the Horseshoe. When he did eventually turn up, back in the sports field, after the raid was over, poor old Dick discovered that he had lost his gold watch while he was running to the Horseshoe. He offered 2/6d to anyone who found it in the playing field, and, true to his word, Dick paid up the 2/6d. It wasn't long before the pavilion was taken over by the 42nd Royal Tank Regiment as a sergeants mess, the army then proceeded to paint all the glass in the pavilion windows black, which remained like this for the rest of the war. Despite popular belief, tanks never entered the sports field. The only large piece of army equipment that entered the field was an Anti-Aircraft gun that took up position on the football pitch on various nights during the blitz of 1941. This pleased us boys from the lane, whose biggest hobby was collecting shrapnel that had fallen in the field overnight. While shrapnel hunting one day, we found a cannon shell in the tennis courts, as it did not look like the normal cannon shell, we decided to tell PC
Bradsell, the village bobby, who lived in the end house in Church Lane, he called in the army who found it was an explosive type, and they told us it could have blown our hands off if we had picked it up.
Talking of P.C. Bradsell, he was a fine leg break bowler who played for Warlingham in the pre-war cricket team.
After the Tank Corps had departed for North Africa, the pavilion continued to be occupied by the army. Firstly by the Royal Corps of Signals and then by an infantry regiment who used it for training their buglers, which fascinated us boys, seeing the buglers lined up along the pavilion veranda, filling the sports field with sounds of Reveille, Cookhouse, Lights Out & The Last Post.
At one morning assembly at Farleigh Road School, the head master stated that he had received a complaint from Warlingham Sports Club that the tennis club's small wooden pavilion had slowly disappeared during the war. Suddenly, a voice from the back of the hall shouted "They should go and see what all the local rabbit hutches are made from".
(Well, I thought it was funny!).

The most memorable incident that occurred during the war, happened on one dark rainy night during the blitz. There was an air raid on, it was about 9.00pm, I was sheltering under the living room table as it was too wet to go down to the shelter. From out of
nowhere we heard the explosions from a stick of bombs gradually coming closer with the last explosion being really loud and shaking the house. Our two intrepid air raid wardens, Mr Good and Mr Howells, decided that the bombs had fallen somewhere in Farleigh, but they decided to walk across the sports field to investigate. They had not walked very far when Mr Good shouted "It's not at Farleigh it’s here" whilst grovelling in muddy water at the bottom of an 8 foot deep bomb crater which he had just fallen into. The bomb had fallen just off the top side of the cricket table. This explains the dip in the top pitch, as the table has recently been extended onto the site of the bomb crater.
One of the other bombs fell on what is now the practice football pitch. Another one just the other side of Crewes Lane, this bomb did not leave a crater and could have been a UXB.
POST WAR
The first time I participated in any thing organised by the sports club, was when Dick Townley got together a group of us local youngsters in 1946 to play a cricket match against Woldingham, at Woldingham. We had an easy win by 7 wickets. For some
reason, no other game was arranged for this young team, which was a shame, because there was a lot of young promising talent there.
I first officially joined the sports club in 1947 at the age of 15, when I joined Warlingham Juniors Football Team. This team was founded by Peter Sales, the then secretary of the football section and had it’s pitch on the school common. To say we had a disastrous start would be an understatement. We had four home games to start the season in the Croydon Junior League. The first game against Croydon Adults Juniors we lost 0-18, the second game against Crystal Palace Juniors we lost 0-17, the third game against Croydon Old Boys Juniors we lost 0-21, but unbelievably, the fourth game against Sir Philip Games Boys Club we WON 4-2. Luckily for myself and, our goalkeeper, a scout had come along to the game to watch some of the players on the other side, but instead of inviting them, our goalkeeper and myself were invited for a trial at Fulham F.C.
Unfortunately, nothing came of it, but at least I can say that I have played at Craven Cottage.
Some of the most successful years for the football club were in the late forties, and the early fifties, when the first team were either winners of the Surrey Intermediate League, or runners up. It was nothing to see up to 200 supporters around the football pitch. There was a thriving supporters club, who produced a weekly programme, and ran fund raising activities in aid of the football club. It was at this time that the club colours were changed to Green and White.
One of the main rivals in those years was Banstead Athletic (Whyteleafe in those days were the poor relations, playing in the Thornton Heath League). Banstead Athletic were eventually promoted to the Surrey Senior League although Warlingham finished above them in the Intermediate League.
Finally, it must be said, that a lot of the success of this team was due to the work of Peter Sales, who, together with Dick Tappenden got the football club started again after the war. The supporters club was started by Jimmy Dickenson.
Some memorable cricket matches were played on the ground in the early fifties. in particular, the benefit matches played against Surrey C.C.C. These matches were very popular, with spectators seated all around the boundary. Surrey always brought with them a full strength team, including their England test players Fishlock, Bedser, Laker and Lock.

The 2nd part of this article will be published shortly and will appear here at a later date.