Custom Bats Cricket Forum

Equipment => Bats => Topic started by: Tony Game on February 03, 2021, 05:49:20 PM

Title: Hand made English willow, 5 - star grading....and only £19.95
Post by: Tony Game on February 03, 2021, 05:49:20 PM
(https://i.postimg.cc/SXbptGcg/bats-2-1.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/SXbptGcg)

(https://i.postimg.cc/K1M2NW3K/bats-three-2.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/K1M2NW3K)

My first post on the forum so forgive me  :)

And it was that price in when I ordered it in October 1980.....St Peter Caravelle now retired from the game (like me) and  resting alongside three of its fellow 1980's retirees!!
Title: Re: Hand made Enlish willow, 5 - star grading....and only £19.95
Post by: Bats_Entertainment on February 03, 2021, 06:13:34 PM
Wow! Saint Peter! Were just disappearing as I got into cricket. Originally made by Lambert's in Lancashire. Possibly by County later on? More famous for their batting mittens;  but also had a flat-back bat innovation, I think.
Title: Re: Hand made Enlish willow, 5 - star grading....and only £19.95
Post by: Bats_Entertainment on February 03, 2021, 06:39:33 PM
Maybe one of the first 'sticker brands'? Unless anyone knows that they had a factory?
Title: Re: Hand made Enlish willow, 5 - star grading....and only �19.95
Post by: procricket on February 03, 2021, 06:43:24 PM
Nope made at Lambert in Nelson
Title: Re: Hand made Enlish willow, 5 - star grading....and only �19.95
Post by: Bats_Entertainment on February 03, 2021, 06:48:30 PM
Nope made at Lambert in Nelson

Always? When did Lambert stop making bats? Wasn't there a fire?

 One of the first 'sticker brands'? Maybe the first?
Title: Re: Hand made Enlish willow, 5 - star grading....and only £19.95
Post by: InternalTraining on February 03, 2021, 06:57:13 PM
SP! Tusker!!

Love it!
Title: Re: Hand made Enlish willow, 5 - star grading....and only �19.95
Post by: procricket on February 03, 2021, 06:59:04 PM
Always? When did Lambert stop making bats? Wasn't there a fire?

 One of the first 'sticker brands'? Maybe the first?

Not always Lambert's stop being Lambert's and Hartley and changed into a timber supplier not sure when

Infact around from my grandma's on Nelson is Walter Lambert Coffins !!!
Title: Re: Hand made Enlish willow, 5 - star grading....and only £19.95
Post by: Bats_Entertainment on February 03, 2021, 07:01:37 PM
They all look like they had life in them. Welcome to the forum!
Title: Re: Hand made Enlish willow, 5 - star grading....and only �19.95
Post by: Bats_Entertainment on February 03, 2021, 07:03:55 PM
Not always Lambert's stop being Lambert's and Hartley and changed into a timber supplier not sure when

So SP could have been made by County later on? I seem to remenber being told that.
Title: Re: Hand made Enlish willow, 5 - star grading....and only £19.95
Post by: jonny77 on February 03, 2021, 07:09:31 PM
(https://i.postimg.cc/SXbptGcg/bats-2-1.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/SXbptGcg)

(https://i.postimg.cc/K1M2NW3K/bats-three-2.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/K1M2NW3K)

My first post on the forum so forgive me  :)

And it was that price in when I ordered it in October 1980.....St Peter Caravelle now retired from the game (like me) and  resting alongside three of its fellow 1980's retirees!!

Lovely stuff! Remember a few SPs kicking around in my Dads team when I was a kid, always liked the simplicity of the branding
Title: Re: Hand made Enlish willow, 5 - star grading....and only £19.95
Post by: Bats_Entertainment on February 03, 2021, 07:11:56 PM
Infact around from my grandma's on Nelson is Walter Lambert Coffins !!!

Seems the fire was more recent:
https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/9588159.updated-long-established-coffin-factory-nelson-devasted-fire/  (https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/9588159.updated-long-established-coffin-factory-nelson-devasted-fire/)
Title: Re: Hand made Enlish willow, 5 - star grading....and only �19.95
Post by: FattusCattus on February 04, 2021, 09:00:50 AM
Does the Tusker have a funky profile? Love a Tusker I do!
Title: Re: Hand made Enlish willow, 5 - star grading....and only �19.95
Post by: Tony Game on February 04, 2021, 09:35:36 AM
"Does the Tusker have a funky profile? Love a Tusker I do!"
Alas no, this model was a conventional shape bat....but probably one of the best Ive owned.
It just felt good in the hand and the ball flew off of it :)
Title: Re: Hand made Enlish willow, 5 - star grading....and only £19.95
Post by: Northern monkey on February 04, 2021, 02:06:58 PM
Always? When did Lambert stop making bats? Wasn't there a fire?

 One of the first 'sticker brands'? Maybe the first?

Their was a few fires over the years,,,seem to remember one that destroyed thousands of clefts at the time..
I lived a few hundred yards from there
Title: Re: Hand made Enlish willow, 5 - star grading....and only £19.95
Post by: Bats_Entertainment on February 04, 2021, 02:12:23 PM
Their was a few fires over the years,,,seem to remember one that destroyed thousands of clefts at the time..
I lived a few hundred yards from there

So when did they stop making bats? My grandfathers Lambert's bat is in my parents' loft. That is why I became interested in the company. He would have finished playing in the late sixties, I think.

I wonder if Learie Constantine liked a Lambert's bat?
Title: Re: Hand made Enlish willow, 5 - star grading....and only £19.95
Post by: Northern monkey on February 04, 2021, 02:40:49 PM
I’ve no idea to be honest,,,
I knew the bats were made there, and the willow was stored there for drying etc, but I don’t remember seeing many of the bats.
I’m sure there was,,but that was in the days of club kit bags, very few had their own bats,,I must have been 14, or 15 when I got my first DF magnum
There were always a few sp bats about.

I was always a big DF fan, so if it wasn’t a Fearnley or a GN scoop, I wasn’t interested.

I do remember the stories about all the willow going up in smoke, that must have been mid eighties or sooner.
Always seemed to be something going up in smoke in those days,,health and safety was non existent,

Title: Re: Hand made Enlish willow, 5 - star grading....and only £19.95
Post by: Bats_Entertainment on February 04, 2021, 02:49:18 PM
Maybe coincided with the demise of SP?
Title: Re: Hand made Enlish willow, 5 - star grading....and only �19.95
Post by: Tony Game on February 05, 2021, 03:43:17 PM
SP had their time in the sun late seventies with Tony Greig headlining their UK advertising campaigns.
Post Packer and WSC it was a quick decline and the advert pictured from 1980 was pretty much a clear out of stock before they faded into oblivion (though the mitten gloves remained the favoured wear of a few well known cricketers)
Title: Re: Hand made Enlish willow, 5 - star grading....and only £19.95
Post by: Bats_Entertainment on February 05, 2021, 05:06:53 PM
Looking at pictures from the seventies, there were definitely  plenty of big names who used the gloves without using the bats. Early Ian Botham pictures, for example, show him wearing them.

Stuart Surridge marketed a similar glove called the 'Armadillo' in the eighties, but it never really caught on.
Title: Re: Hand made Enlish willow, 5 - star grading....and only �19.95
Post by: shentser on February 05, 2021, 07:26:43 PM
One of my greatest cricketing regrets

Never owning a Saint Peter
Title: Re: Hand made Enlish willow, 5 - star grading....and only �19.95
Post by: Bats_Entertainment on February 05, 2021, 08:35:42 PM
One of my greatest cricketing regrets

Never owning a Saint Peter

Make Tony an offer?
Title: Re: Hand made Enlish willow, 5 - star grading....and only �19.95
Post by: procricket on February 05, 2021, 09:32:53 PM
Funny SP different brand same again by a dodgy seller in Devon in the early to mid 2000 Headfirst cricket or something I got stung with a bat from them
Title: Re: Hand made Enlish willow, 5 - star grading....and only �19.95
Post by: Tony Game on February 08, 2021, 03:32:36 PM
"One of my greatest cricketing regrets

Never owning a Saint Peter"

"Make Tony an offer?"


Sorry  ;) The bats in the rack are old friends....each tells a story and reminds me of good times with wonderful people.

I'd rather sell one of the kids  :o :o :D
Title: Re: Hand made Enlish willow, 5 - star grading....and only £19.95
Post by: Rez on February 08, 2021, 08:27:12 PM
Takes me right back, lovely  :)
Title: Re: Hand made Enlish willow, 5 - star grading....and only �19.95
Post by: Bats_Entertainment on February 08, 2021, 08:55:23 PM

Sorry  ;) The bats in the rack are old friends....each tells a story and reminds me of good times with wonderful people.

I'd rather sell one of the kids  :o :o :F

Fair enough. Although if Geoff Boycott can sell his bats, anyone can. ;)