Obituaries
Marjorie Hibberd (1918 – 2007)
Marj moved to the village in the 1950’s when her husband Les was employed as gardener at the Abbey House, both her sons Barry and Roger started to play for the cricket team. It was in 1959 that Marj commenced scoring under the guidance of Bill Miller and Bill Butler, Marj enhanced her skills and over the years more colourful ball by ball statistics were available and her name appeared as scorer on the annual fixture card from 1959 until 2007 – Sadly, she could not make the 50 years but quite a record nevertheless.
Marj’s energy and enthusiasm for the sporting activities of the village expanded and she became treasurer of the football club and secretary of the Cricket Club and Sports Club. Her organisation of Bingo’s amongst other fundraising events proved vital to the ongoing financial viability of the Clubs. Over the years our Cricket teas have become renowned as one of the best in the county and Marj was heavily involved in the organisation and preparation of these.
Outside of sporting activities Marj had also been leader of the local Cubs pack as well as a member of the local Womens Institute.
Her hard work and dedication to all the village activities will not be forgotten, truly a remarkable woman.
Michael North (1958 – 2001)
Mike was brought up in Manswood and Crichel where his father was gamekeeper on the Crichel Estate. Mike went to school in Cranborne and after a spell in the army started playing football for the village team. Mike gave 110% every game, he was a “hustle and bustle” player who would run from end to end all day and never knew when he was beaten. He became captain and revelled in the role, unfortunately a serious illness curtailed his playing career, but Mike needed to be involved and he took up refereeing where his commitment and dedication led him to the heights of referring at football league level and linesman at Premier league level. Two notable events in his career was officialising at Wembley in a Division play-off final and linesman in a FA Cup Semi-final between Arsenal and Manchester United where Sky sports Andy Gray had to agree with one of Mike’s decisions when Mark Hughes clearly didn’t.
Mike also became involved with the Cricket Club and as well as playing in the second team took on the Match secretary position for 16 years. During this period he had spells of captaining the 2nd XI, 1st XI and Sunday team. Mike led from the front and although not graced with cricketing elegance his enthusiasm and determination enabled him to develop his aggressive batting and fielding techniques.
On the field Mike played the game as it should be, hard, fair and to win but off the field he was generous and gracious in defeat and carried out his tasks with dignity.
As well as being a truly reliable community person, Mike was a thoroughly determined person and totally dedicated to his family, working and sporting careers.
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