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Rex Body: A tribute from past Gloucestershire President Roger Gibbons

12 October 2022

Although I had been aware of Rex as a member of the Executive Board for several years, I first met him in 2007. As a newly elected member of the old Beaufort Club, I was able to watch cricket at Bristol from the Committee Room in the old Pavilion.

We soon became good friends. It was Rex who eventually persuaded me to seek election to the Executive Board. Once elected, my time on the Board overlapped with the end of his Chairmanship and into his time as Club President.

My enthusiasm had always been in the history and heritage of the Club, a feeling shared by Rex. Following his retirement as Chairman and the subsequent completion of the redevelopment of the ground which he had overseen, Rex, along with wife, Wendy, showed a keen interest in the re-establishment of a museum. The old museum, once described by him as “something, in size, not much more than a small cupboard”, had been lost to the rebuild of the pavilion.

In 2014, that interest led to the creation of a separately registered charity, the GCCC Heritage Trust. Our aim was: 'to advance education for the public benefit in the subject of Gloucestershire County Cricket Club, its history and heritage, by the establishment of a Museum and Learning Centre'.

A tireless worker for and on behalf of Gloucestershire Cricket, his legacy to the Club is the rebuilt ground which is now a regular venue on the international circuit of both men’s and women’s cricket.

For me, his legacy is the Museum and Learning Centre at the ground where we continue to display the history and heritage of the Club.

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