Plans are in place to revive the annual Southampton Princess and Hamilton Princess cricket match after almost 30 years.

The match was first played between the two sister hotels in 1974 and later involved Southampton Princess playing other hotel teams in Thursday matches at Southampton Oval up to the late 1980s.

The match between Fairmont Southampton and Fairmont Hamilton Princess will be played on August 25, a 20-overs match at Southampton Oval starting at 1pm.

Leslie Pryce, the organiser of the matches when he worked at Southampton Princess, is helping to revive the match, possibly with the view to expanding to involve other teams.

“They have called on the old boy to help put it together,” said Pryce, who recalls the popularity of the competition which involved many league players who worked for the various hotels.

“I’ll be on the outside looking in but will assist in any way possible. I started at the Southampton Princess in 1972 and put this programme together in 1974.

“Out of this rivalry in cricket they played football and had an annual kite flying competition. The rivalry did a lot of good things for the staff.”