These two decades saw the club expand at the start of the period and sustain a high level of activity into the early 1990s. In 1979 we played 53 matches and in 1991 we played 47 matches. But by the end of the 90s the fixture list and playing membership had reduced considerably though we had begun to make several tours to Continental Europe and the merger with Virgin XI brought in additional players so that the combined number of matches played in 1999 was 36, 7 of which were Virgin XI.
Nomads had persevered despite the dramatic rise of League Cricket in the South East which almost eliminated Saturday friendly fixtures. Slowly Sunday cricket became eroded to the point where few players played both days at the weekend and the strongest of League Clubs only put out 3rd XIs on a Sunday, if at all, outside of County and National competition matches.
Wandering Cricket Clubs very much the doyen of the ‘Golden Age’ were ignored by the Cricket Authorities to the extent that most young cricketers in UK grew up totally unaware of the existence of such clubs.
Nomads suffered a further blow when the seemingly endless supply of cricketers from Australia and New Zealand appeared to dry up and the latest generation of Caribbeans in the UK spurned cricket, the game their antecedents loved so much.
By the start of this period Nomads no longer played any Military Establishments and by the end of the period Nomads no longer played any Medical Schools nor Oxbridge Colleges. Both had been successful sources of recruitment for the club.
However at the start of this period Nomads in addition to some 80 fixtures including several tours and one to Paris also played in the MCC Indoor 6 a side cricket league as well as the Wandsworth Community Jubilee 15/15(8 ball) overs League on midweek evenings and some knock out 7 a side and 6 a side competitions. In all formats we played 77 matches in 1979.
There was a significant number of young Sherburnians who joined in the 1970s.Several local clubs also provided a lot of players, in particular, Woldingham and Cobham. There was also much of cross over membership with Cryptics, Washington and UCL Academicals. Richard Kershaw also intoduced a string of fine cricketers from Dominica via the former Radbourne Motors off Holland Park Avenue.
