The first profile of club cricket leagues in Surrey
It may not be where you find glamour boys of Surrey club cricket, but the Fuller's Brewery Surrey Count League plays a pivotal role.
There's a good reason why it’s known to most as 'The Fuller's' - the league has been backed since its inauguration in 1992 by the Chiswick, Smith & Turner's Brewery, which has stood on the same site in Chiswick for 350 years. It's an enviable example of continuity on both fronts in an age where backers come and go as speedily as batsmen on a green top.
Club cricket in Surrey became increasingly structured by the early 1990's the expansion of the Surrey Championship augmented by the Fuller's. It was largely made up of teams from an earlier competition sponsored by the brewery - which also included sides from Middlesex - plus others who had been in the Three Counties and Wey Valley Leagues. They formed a first and second XI League of 19 clubs plus a competition for those two ran to three sides.
Within a year that was expanded to two divisions and in 2019 will involve 46 clubs fielding 77 separate teams.
Old Hamptonians, champions in that first season, were invited to join the Surrey Championship for the following but it was not until 1998 that automatic promotion and relegation between the two organisations was secured.
One of the major changes to the Fuller's came in 2013, when the divisions became 10-strong with matches divided between limited overs and time.
Being a feeder league to the Surrey Championship means the Fuller's always loses its leading sides at the end of each season - facilities providing - but a number have returned, and some have bounced back and forth regularly.
Valley End went from the old second division all the way up to the Championship Premier in a dizzying climb, now consolidating one step down, and others have made impressive advances.
That can work the other way too. For Mitcham, where cricket has been played on The Green since 1685 and who were one of the giants of the Championship in its earliest days, it has been a steady decline and they now reside in Fuller's Division Two, finishing halfway up last year.
Mitcham can scarcely have imagined they might be looking upwards one day at Premier side Newdigate, a bastion of village cricket on the Surrey/Sussex border and relative newcomers after starting life in 1849. Playing a full part in the heart of their community, they arrived late in league cricket by joining the Surrey Downs League in 1999 and switches to the Fuller's in 2013.
Another club with a rich history is Ripley, cricket having been played in the village since 1749. The club are an integral part of the village, their pavilion a converted 18th century stable with low beams, much work having been done to keep the facilities up to date. Former England left-arm spinner Ashley Giles is their most famous old boy and his family remain heavily involved in the club.
There is a timeless quality to matches on Ripley Green, a reminder of the roots of the game lying in the heart of communities.
As a step towards greater things, home for the fallen or long-standing home, the Fuller's plays a huge part in Surrey club cricket.