The 1996 Lord’s final: Langleybury v Caldy

On 1 September 1996, Langleybury played Caldy in the National Village Championship final at Lord’s. Caldy made 222 for five; Langleybury were 216 all out, a defeat by six runs in the 40-over match. The competition organiser’s published scorecard provides the central record. Read the final scorecard.

The match at a glance

Langleybury’s innings

Captain P. K. Reynolds led the batting with 73. Jawid Khan contributed 34, S. M. Palmer 31 and M. Fry 28. The complete batting order helps preserve the actual side, rather than substituting well-known names from other periods of the club’s history.

The names and figures above follow the organiser’s scorecard. Initials are preserved where that is the form of the source. Gordon Riddick does not appear in this XI: an obituary’s broader reference to him playing at Lord’s cannot establish his participation in this particular match.

Bowling and the close finish

Jawid Khan took 3/32 and S. P. J. Baldwin 2/32. Those wickets, together with Khan’s contribution in the chase, make his all-round role clear. The scorecard records Langleybury losing its last two wickets with the score on 216. It establishes the narrow margin without requiring an invented ball-by-ball account. Final scorecard; contemporary Cricinfo transcription.

The supporters’ occasion

The Watford Observer’s retrospective describes several hundred Langleybury supporters, a banquet before the final and the experience of using the England dressing room. Its account captures the importance of reaching Lord’s after the club’s earlier national cup campaigns. The pride in the occasion sits alongside the disappointment of such a close result. The newspaper’s retrospective.

Care is needed with the dates on that page. Its online publication date is 26 March 2002, while a historical heading refers to 6 September 1996. Neither is the match date. The scorecard places the final on 1 September 1996.

The records behind the story

The final scorecard names M. Alwyn, J. Gunning and R. D. Walker as scorers. Those names may help identify surviving scorebooks, annotations or photographs. The scorecard itself is a stronger source for the playing XI and numerical result than later memory.

The 1996 route to Lord’s remains only partly reconstructed. Earlier-round scorebooks, the final programme and dated supporter photographs would extend it. The archive guide explains what makes such material useful.