Leigh Cricket Club,  Kent                                      

If you should show a foreigner the perfect English scene,

Please take him to a cricket match upon Leigh village green;

A grassy scent, a whispering breeze, a blue sky over all,

The music brave and beautiful as boldly bat meets ball;

The umpire swathed in sweaters like a comic Christmas tree-

Oh, these are gallant sounds to hear and goodly sights to see.

The bowler reaps his harvest and no centuries are made,

But fearlessly we face him with a flashing willow-blade.

Let pad play be the refuge of professional poltroons,

But courage, gay and dashing, lights our summer afternoons.

The batsman shows his braces and the stumper wear a trilby;.

But this is forever England and, please God, it ever will be.

If there are any pubs in paradise (oh please God I hear you Call)

I hope I'll sip my nectar at the heavenly Bat and Ball,

And sometimes in the twilight, when the dusky shadows pass,

My shade will wander wistfully along the dewy grass,

For, though Elysium's fabled fields are cool and sweet and clean,

The golden world, the olden world is just Leigh village green.

Adapted from a poem by A. A. Thomson by the once-prolific Dave Walshe