101 Green Street. Tel: 01932 770077, Web: barmyarmy.com.

Mon - Fri 09:00 - 17:00, Closed Sat & Sun

Providers of all things cricket related including memberships, match tickets, merchandise, travels and tours.

The year is 1994, the game is cricket and the series is the Ashes in Australia. England, not for the first time in recent memory, are getting right royally tonked by everyone from the full Australia side to the local Primary School's second XI. Nevertheless, the die-hard England supporters are making the best of it and having a ball. Ian Wooldridge suggests we should be gassed for our lively behaviour, but the Aussie media took a shine to us and came up with the moniker Barmy Army for fairly obvious reasons.

We produced a T-Shirt in time for the Adelaide Test match that featured the debut of the Barmy Army logo, a map of Australia and the tour dates. They arrived on the third day of the Test and somehow it coincided with a famous and unexpected England victory. The Barmy Army was born and since then we have followed the team home and away with gusto, with pride and with a little bit of alcohol.

The Barmy Army has a stated goal - to make watching cricket more fun and much more popular. We use flags, banners, songs and chants to encourage the England team on the pitch. Australians, both players and supporters, serve especially as foils for our humour.

In contrast to the reputations of some sports fans, the Barmy Army organises itself thoroughly and actively discourages any unsavoury behaviour. The group engages in charity work, and has a good reputation among cricket administrators and other fans - well the majority of them anyway.

As the Barmy Army evolved we developed our own cricket club, a colts section, organized various events and became heavily involved in the Chance to Shine appeal to promote cricket in state schools. Such was the success of the Army that in 2007 the decision was taken to launch a full membership Scheme. But as the Army evolves over time, the ethos remains the same; to be passionate about England, passionate about cricket and passionate about fun and to welcome everyone to our particular gang whether they join us for a day, a week or a lifetime.