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Kent County Cricket Club had been one of the dominant pre-war sides, winning the championship four times between 1903 and 1913. When war was declared in 1914, the cricket season was already underway and was only just completed. The St Lawrence ground in Canterbury didn't see first class cricket played again until 1919.

The side that took the field after the war looked very different to the championship winning team of 1913. More than twenty players had been wounded and fifteen had been killed, including Kent and England's left arm spinner, Colin Blythe, considered one of the stars of the game at the time.

Blythe was killed at Passchendaele in 1917, whilst serving with the King鈥檚 Own Yorkshire Light Infantry. He is buried in the Oxford Road cemetery in Belgium. Almost instantly, a public collection was organised to pay for a memorial. That memorial with Blythe鈥檚 name and those of other players still stands today at the St Lawrence Ground.

Location: St Lawrence Cricket Ground, Canterbury, Kent CT1 3NZ
Image: Colin Blythe, courtesy of Paul Lewis
Presented by Jenny Barsby