Last of the Summer Wine. Pete Raynbird and pals watching Basingstoke & North Hants at the Bounty.
There will be an all too familiar and popular face missing alongside the boundary rope when (hopefully) cricket resumes at May's Bounty this summer following the sad passing of Basingstoke sporting stalwart Peter Raynbird (pictured left) this week, aged 95.
Every weekend throughout the summer months and often in midweek for Guy Jewell Cup matches, his daughter Vanessa (so well known in Hampshire women's soccer circles) would take him to May's Bounty where he would sit with his chums by the boundary rope watching Basingstoke & North Hants play and reminisce about games of yesteryear, the days of Bernie and Clive Harrison et al.
A scene from the BBC's hugely popular Last of the Summer Wine series springs to mind !
Peter was widely and rightly regarded as a local sporting legend and a great servant to football, in particular. A thoroughly popular man who dedicated a huge amount of his time, efforts and expertise to local football, he was president of Basingstoke Town FC and was registration secretary of the Basingstoke Football League for a staggering 60 years.
He loved his sports reporting too and well into his 90s he was still submitting match reports into the Basingstoke Gazette newspaper.
Retired Basingstoke Gazette sports editor Graham Merry commented: "We will greatly miss Peter's banter. He was a great servant to football and when I first started covering Town he was in the press box as he used to phone in copy for the Daily Echo Sports Pink.
"His face was always a picture when someone scored a late goal, which meant he had to re-write his report to get inside the word count.
"Even when he left the press box to sit in the directors box, he would still deliver biscuits or cake from the board room for the start of the second half."
The smiling face of Peter Raynbird will be sadly missed in Basingstoke sporting circles, none more so than at the Bounty ....
Every weekend throughout the summer months and often in midweek for Guy Jewell Cup matches, his daughter Vanessa (so well known in Hampshire women's soccer circles) would take him to May's Bounty where he would sit with his chums by the boundary rope watching Basingstoke & North Hants play and reminisce about games of yesteryear, the days of Bernie and Clive Harrison et al.
A scene from the BBC's hugely popular Last of the Summer Wine series springs to mind !
Peter was widely and rightly regarded as a local sporting legend and a great servant to football, in particular. A thoroughly popular man who dedicated a huge amount of his time, efforts and expertise to local football, he was president of Basingstoke Town FC and was registration secretary of the Basingstoke Football League for a staggering 60 years.
He loved his sports reporting too and well into his 90s he was still submitting match reports into the Basingstoke Gazette newspaper.
Retired Basingstoke Gazette sports editor Graham Merry commented: "We will greatly miss Peter's banter. He was a great servant to football and when I first started covering Town he was in the press box as he used to phone in copy for the Daily Echo Sports Pink.
"His face was always a picture when someone scored a late goal, which meant he had to re-write his report to get inside the word count.
"Even when he left the press box to sit in the directors box, he would still deliver biscuits or cake from the board room for the start of the second half."
The smiling face of Peter Raynbird will be sadly missed in Basingstoke sporting circles, none more so than at the Bounty ....
