Somerset and England Ashes hero Marcus Trescothick has been reflecting on the joy of his formative years of club cricket at Keynsham, Lansdown and Bath.
The master batsman's earliest childhood memories are of playing with friends outside the boundary ropes at Keynsham CC while keeping a leisurely eye on dad Martyn's progress out in the middle and enjoying the tea prepared by mum Lin for the teams.
By the age of seven he was playing for Keynsham Under-11s and it was in that age group that he hit his first century, for Avon against Devon in a county schoolboy match at Exeter University.
At 14, Trescothick was appearing in the West of England Premier League. By then his summer weekends had long been devoted solely to giving opposition bowlers are hard time.
"When I was too young to play for a team, I would be mucking around with my mates at the cricket club while matches were going on," he told the Western Daily Press.
"I loved the feel of bat on ball from the very start and couldn't wait to be out there where I saw my dad batting. Soon I was playing Saturday afternoons and twice on Sundays.
"Saturday evenings would be spent discussing that day's game with the other players and the fixtures for the following day. Cricket consumed the whole weekend for my family.
"Even when I was at school I wanted to be outside hitting a ball. I have always had a fascination for the equipment used in the game and still mend my own bats today.
"I was always taught that if you look after your bat it will look after you. I'm not quite as fanatical as I used to be, but there was a time when it was hard to catch me without some item of cricket kit to fiddle about with."
Like all clubs in amateur cricket, Keynsham relied on volunteers and players mucking in to keep the ground tidy and the outfield in good condition.
"I can remember driving a tractor around, mowing the grass and cutting hedges," says Marcus. "We all took pride in our club and would do our bit to make it as attractive a venue as possible.
"As a kid I wasn't bothered about how beautiful a venue was. It was the pitches that interested me and how good they were to bat on.
"I loved Lansdown because the wickets there always favoured the batsmen. I also enjoyed playing at Downend because it is such a tiny ground and it doesn't take much to hit the ball out of it."
Trescothick's scoring exploits have continued at senior level with Somerset and he recently broke the record for most first-class runs at The County Ground in Taunton, previously held since 1909 by Lionel Palairet.
"The County Ground is so special to me," he says. "People talk about the view from one end where you can watch with the church towers as the background, but I have found other vantage points just as beautiful.
"The other night, when I had to miss a Somerset Twenty20 game, I made a point of going to watch from high up at the other end. It was a glorious summer evening and you could see as far as the surrounding hills.
"I love playing at Taunton because of the atmosphere the crowd creates. But the setting also makes it very special and I am very lucky to have played so much of my cricket there.
"I signed my first contract with Somerset straight from school and there has never been any thought of moving."
Trescothick first played for the county as a 17-year-old. Soon he was celebrating his first County Championship century, not at Taunton but at the Recreation Ground during the annual Bath cricket festival there. It could not have been closer to his Keynsham home.
"I plan to play until I am 40 at least," he says. "After that I want to stay in the game in some capacity, although I am not yet sure what it will be.
"By playing professionally, I have made so many friends over the years and cricket has taken me to some fantastic parts of the world. But I still love visiting my club and having a drink with my old mates.
"For me, most of all it's that feeling when you get when the ball meets the middle of the bat and you see it fly to the boundary. I get the same buzz from it today as I did in schoolboy cricket. There is nothing like it."
