The island’s oldest living Cup Match player, affectionately known in the East End as Mr P, was also the last surviving member of the St George’s team that delivered a surprise upset by beating the visiting West Indies team at Wellington Oval in 1955.

Samuel Paynter’s legacy for St George’s continues through his great-grandson, Isaiah O’Brien, who also represents the East End club.

The senior Paynter played for St George's in the Classic from 1949, when he was 19, to 1956. Towards the end of his life, he remained twelfth on the all-time Cup Match batting average list, with an average of 32.09 runs per inning, and a top score of 81.

Mr Paynter made a name for himself with his match-saving innings in 1949 as a colt, beating the previous highest score by a colt held by former St George's skipper Clarence Smith.

It marked the first time the annual showdown was played at Cricket Lane, the new home of Somerset Cricket Club.

In 2004, after Mr Paynter was honoured at a tribute ceremony in Wellington Oval, he recalled the occasion to The Royal Gazette: “That was one of my greatest moments — and in the same game, my team were down at 33 for six in the second innings at around 3pm and the late Clarence Simmons and I managed to bat to about 6 in the evening.”

He added: “We carried the team to safety — we couldn't lose the match.”

The August 1955 victory against the West Indies also made big news, with the Gazette reporting that the St George’s Club’s “thrilling seven-run victory” marked a first defeat for the visitors.

In 1956, Mr Paynter said he came through with “the best batting average for St George’s that ever played in Cup Match”. His achievements on the pitch made him a household name in the East End.

Mr Paynter became the island’s oldest living Cup Match cricketer in 2019 with the passing of Leroy “Tubby” Richardson.

Mr Paynter grew up around cricket, played almost universally by the island’s children, in the neighbourhood of Wellington Road, St George’s.

His father, John, was a butcher who died when Mr Paynter was 15, leaving his mother, Primrose, to take care of the family. Like many young men of the day, he had to quit school at an early age to work.

At 13, during the Second World War, he went to work serving ships for Meyer & Company, and remained there for three years.

He met his future wife, Ethlyn, who worked at the time in a St George’s restaurant. The couple married in 1951.

Mr Paynter went on to work for Esso, becoming a truck driver. Later jobs included servicing and refuelling aircraft, and working in the dispatching office for Shell.

Mr Paynter, widowed in 1978, continued to live in St David’s, a short distance from the old family home.

Proud of his cricket legacy, Mr Paynter also acknowledged its vintage in a 2020 interview with the Gazette.

“I am the forgotten soldier,” he said.

• Samuel Richard Kenneth Paynter, a Cup Match legend for St George’s, was born on April 24, 1929. He died in March 2026, aged 96