Glenn Turner's bus fare

Many thanks and congratulations to all at Stourbridge FC for the warm welcome offered yesterday when the club played in the FA Cup first round proper for the first time. Well done to all. Don't leave it 133 years next time!

It was a typical, passionate first round tie, played out on a cold, grey, glowering afternoon to the backdrop of the dear old cricket pavilion on the far side of the ground and the scoreboard static in its winter hibernation. And as Stourbridge and Walsall slugged it out, long on commitment and throw-ins but short on craft and finesse, a few thoughts strayed back to July 29, 1981, the day of the royal wedding, when Glenn Turner unfurled a wonderful century (100 out of 133 in 98 minutes) before lunch against Northamptonshire at Stourbridge, the ground where, as a youngster, he used to play club cricket for 15 shillings a match and his bus fare while qualifying for Worcestershire.

Memories stirred too of the great Maurice Leyland's run-a-ball 167 for Yorkshire there in 1937. A proud and historic place is Stourbridge's War Memorial Athletic Ground - and the only venue in world sport at which Glenn Turner has scored a century and Netan Sansara has taken a throw-in.