THE funeral of the man whose 30 years of hard work gave Malvern's Regency Road cricket ground a reputation as one of the best in the area takes place today (Friday) at Worcester Crematorium.

Cricket was the lifeblood of a young Alf Hinton, born in Birmingham's King Heath in 1926. In his early days, he sat on the back of the roller driven by his groundsman father, the son himself of a keen cricketer.

Alf followed in his father's footsteps by playing cricket, later working as a part-time groundsman for Malvern Ramblers. After retiring as an MoD policeman in 1985, he took over the role full-time, spending between eight and 16 hours a day creating the perfect wicket and keeping score for countless junior matches.

Dave Hinton, the youngest of Alf's three children, said: "He used to play for Worcester many years ago and he played one or two games for Callow End after I was born, before we moved to Malvern Link."

That love of cricket is now instilled in Alf's two young grandsons, who have joined junior teams at Malvern Cricket Club, the new name for Malvern Ramblers.

Wife Marjorie, whom Alf married almost 48 years ago, knew that she had to join in or be left out. She said: "I was 19 and he was 24 when we met. It was love at first sight. We courted for a couple of years and then got married when I was 22, in Powick.

"I'm on the ladies' committee at the club. I didn't know anything about cricket before I got married but if you didn't join them you didn't get a look in. I shall carry on with it and keep his name going."

Ian Dovey, chairman of Malvern Cricket Club, said: "I think Alf was one of the reasons why the club progressed so well over the past 15 to 20 years. What he put into development of the ground was second to nobody. He was a tremendous cricketer and popular with seniors and juniors who came to the ground. He will be a sad loss."