A guide to the Brewin Dolphin Cheltenham Festival in 20 numbers
11 July 2014
A lot has been written about the iconic Brewin Dolphin Cheltenham Cricket Festival - which starts on July 14.
But the story of Gloucestershire Cricket’s most famous fortnight can also be told in figures.
From cricketing records featuring some of the game’s biggest names to the volume of pints consumed at the College Ground each year, we take a look at the festival in 20 numbers.
25,000 people are expected to visit the Brewin Dolphin Cheltenham Cricket Festival in 2014 including 3,500 corporate guests.
They will be hoping for a repeat of last year’s entertaining action that saw 85 wickets fall and 3,424 runs scored over the two weeks. This included 433 boundaries (392 fours and 41 sixes).
With more excitement expected on the field this year, fans are likely to work up quite a thirst. Over the 11 days of cricket - around 60 hours - the army of bar staff will have their hands full pouring an estimated 20,000 pints.
Cheltenham is renowned as a family friendly event and ice cream is the refreshment of choice amongst young fans (and older ones with a sweet tooth!). Around 4,000 are expected to be sold this year.
As well as the ice cream vans another part of the ground popular with junior Glos supporters is the Ambercrombie and Kent coaching zone. During the festival qualified coaches provide 36 hours of free coaching for an estimated 720 children.
This doesn’t include the 500 pupils from 15 primary schools who will receive free entry to the second day of the LV County Championship v Derbyshire on July 15. The highlight of their day is likely to be the lunch interval where all 500 will receive coaching on the College’s pristine outfield.
And while Gloucestershire Cricket is committed to inspiring the next generation of young cricket fans the Cheltenham Festival also offers a chance for many people to reminisce about the past.
None of our supporters were alive to see the legendary WG Grace make the highest individual score at the College Ground – 318 not out v Yorkshire in 1876 (the first ever county triple hundred).
But somemay remember being part of the record crowd of 14,000 that watched the home side’s Championship decider with Middlesex in 1947.
One man who was there was life member Eric Gordon. He attended his first Cheltenham Festival in 1934 and will be celebrating his 80th anniversary of that visit this year. Barring the war years and 1946 when he was posted overseas, Eric has never missed a festival in all that time.
He would have been too young to witness Wally Hammond take 10 catches in an innings for Gloucestershire in a match against Surrey in 1928 – a record that still stands to this day. But he certainly would have seen spinner Tom Goddard who took an incredible 269 wickets in 51 matches at the College Ground.
It is now 142 years since the first festival which was run by Cheltenham College coach James Lillywhite.
These days the festival has grown in size to the point that it takes a team of 10 around 128 hours to turn the ground from school playing field into a First Class sporting arena.
In the 416 First Class, List A and T20 matches played at the College Ground since the first match v Surrey the record team total is the 672 (for 7) made by Worcestershire v Glos in 2008 .
Hopefully that will be one number the current Gloucestershire side can change in 2014.
