1946-1978
The club resumed after the 2nd World War with the 1946 season. Although the club struggled to rebuild its playing strength it was by the early 1950s playing as many as fifty matches. There was continuity in that several players and some of the club’s officers including the Hon Sec Sydney Caulfield & Hon Treasurer JR Welch straddled the War years but it was to be a period of vigorous recruitment resulting in a distinctly military flavour to the playing membership.
The fixture list included many military establishments,medical schools,Oxford and Cambridge Colleges and a lot of independent schools so there was ample opportunity for recruitment. There was also a continuing association with the Architectural Profession via Messrs Caulfield and Norton.
Hallam ‘Granny’ Alston joined at this period. In 1950 his first Nomads season he scored 1096 runs and took 115 wickets. and again in ‘Coronation and Ashes regained year of 1953 he celebrated with 1136 runs and took 135 wickets. For thirty years for the club. He was to play through the 50s, 60s and 70s playing his last Nomads game in his mid seventies in 1983. ‘Granny’ (so called for predilection to drink tea rather than beer when on tour) took over 1,100 wickets and scored over 8,000 runs Also in the 50s Pat Mean scored a lot of runs at electric pace with prodigious power in his shots. In 1953 he hit 1175 runs.
In 1953 the club celebrated its Golden Jubilee with a week of cricket at The Hurlingham Club in Fulham fully reported in the London Evening Press, a season of 77 matches played. Eric Warburg who joined in the late 1940s held his wedding reception on the Thursday of the Jubilee week at the hurlingham Club but played all the other days for Nomads including Friday’s match!
The 1960s proved to be a difficult time especially as Sidney passed on to another playing field and the fixture list steadily declined from fifty matches to half that number. However by the end of the decade a good number of new members had been recruited often by the energetic Colin Owen-Browne so that the 1970s witnessed a vigorous resurgence despite the development of League Cricket in the Home Counties.
For the 1970 season a former Cambridge Heavy Weight Boxing Blue Ian Crombie was appointed club skipper on account of his light blue sweater which was supposed to put fear in the hearts of the opposition. Crombie had a generosity of spirit which was oten more popular with our opposition than his fellow Nomads thus coining a Nomads phrase “Doing a Crombie”. Nomads visited Brussells CC six times 1973-1978 and held some spectacular parties in London.
Crombie was succeeded by Keith Ellison who brought some Northern grit and humour and then he handed on to Mike Ghersie who brought great success to the club and a lot of younger players joined Nomads CC.