Given that such legendary footballers of yesterday year like Geoff Hurst and Denis Compton also played first-class Cricket for their local county teams, it is perhaps no surprise to find that several Swindon footballers have played cricket for Swindon as well as football.

Pride of place has to go to Robbie Reynolds, as without him, the County Ground might never have existed. He was playing when the football club was an amateur organisation, as the cricket club has remained to this day.

Robbie played with several of his friends, such as Arthur Dibsdall, in the Winter, but in the Summer, some other footballers played for a railway-linked team in Farringdon Road Park. Robbie persuaded his dad, William Reynolds, to get together with other town worthies to set up the County Ground Sports Company.

This organisation had ambitious aims to create a ground where not only football and cricket but cycling, athletics, and even polo could be played. For Robbie, the beauty of this scheme was that he felt with a good ground reserved for cricket, rather than a public park like Faringdon Road ground, his friends could be persuaded to join up with him, and they could enjoy football and cricket together.

In 1901, Reynolds resumed the captaincy of the cricket club and scored well over five hundred runs, making him the club’s leading run scorer. The following year saw him pass the five thousand run mark for the club, and he was still playing for the cricket club in 1909. Although........

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