History

Checkendon now has an excellent playing field. Through the years this had been lacking in the village. By 1939 a field of 7.9 acres in the centre of the village, rented by the Parish Council for the purpose, had been laid down for cricket, football, lawn tennis, children's swings and sandpit. In 1942, however, owing to the need for food production, the entire ground was ploughed up, by order of the War Agricultural Committee. At the end of the war, although the ground had been re-seeded, the resulting grass was inferior to that which originally existed and the surface was very uneven.

The Parish Council with the late Colonel Janes taking a leading part took the matter in hand.  With the village behind them and the help of the Playing Fields Association, they were able to purchase the field and to have it properly re-installed for cricket, football and lawn tennis. The cost of this was £1700, spent as follows: -

Ministry of Education Grant                  788.0.0
Ministry of Agriculture Compensation    250.0.0
Grazing, hay etc.                                  53.5.0
Appeal Fund                                       619.4.3
                              Total Raised      £ 1710.9.3

Acquisition of land                              748.0.0
Work on ground                                  570.0.0
Equipment                                         368.8.5
Maintenance (mowing etc)                   24.0.10
                     Total Expenditure       £ 1710.9.3

All the organisations in the village contributed to the appeal fund. The Sports Club supported it very generously. The afternoon the first cricket match was played on there-installed ground brought a happy crowd of supporters and there were excited cheers when a Checkendon player bowled the first ball and brought the wickets down a thrilling send- off for the new season.

This piece taken from the Checkendon W I Scrapbooks written in 1955