Picture the scene: a beautiful hot summer's day (remember those?), 10,000 people packed into the ground, England's finest cricketers, a brass band, marquees and the gentry dressed up to the nines.

All this, of course, long before people had cars, so people from all over London travelled to the ground on special Railway Company trains.

Lord's? The Oval? Wrong. Chapel Fields, better known now as the Walker Ground, home of Southgate Cricket Club.

It is a little-known fact that in its day we are talking now of the late 19th Century Southgate was something approaching the home of cricket, at least in London. It was in the days when New Southgate station was called Colney Hatch.

Fast forward a hundred-odd years and it hardly takes a cricket enthusiast to know Southgate has, unfortunately, been surpassed by places like Lord's.

Nothing, however, can take away Southgate's past, and this week the club celebrates their 150th anniversary with successive days of competitive matches.

After games against Club Cricket Conference on Sunday, Hertingfordbury CC (Monday) and Middlesex CCC (yesterday) weather permitting Southgate CC is scheduled to face a Middlesex CCC League XI today, North London Club Veteran's XI tomorrow, and a team of ex-Southgate players on Friday. Players like Colin Saville, Andrew Davies and Matthew Taylor, from the Southgate teams of the 1980s, are expected to turn out on Friday.

All the matches start at 11.30am and will be played at the Walker Ground. Friday's game will be followed by the annual Summer Ball.

If you wish to attend the ball, contact Southgate CC president Peter Jouning on 07771 717647 or send an email to peter@jouning.freeserve.co.uk. Tickets cost £40 each and include food and wine.

u Southgate's week-long celebrations got off to the perfect start as they beat fellow promotion hopefuls Uxbridge in Middlesex County Cricket League Division Two by a convincing 130 runs on Saturday.

Southgate declared on 248-5, Brayden Sutton top scoring with 125. Ben Hartman was 75 not out. Uxbridge went into bat and were all out for 118. Jeremy Dangerfield lived up to his name, taking 6-48.

The victory keeps Southgate in with a shout of promotion.