Origin of a Species (Islington Cricket Man) - Peter Hollman writes...
 
In 1983, I had already been at Pacific Records in Kentish Town for 2 years working for and alongside The Sales Manager - Geoff Wilmot. Geoff was mad keen on sport, being Hampstead (now Hampstead & Westminster) Hockey Club's first choice keeper for several years. With such inspiration, The Pacific Records football side was born.

Fixtures were virtually exclusively against other records companies ie. Stiff, Island, WEA, Rough Trade, record shops such as Virgin, HMV, Our Price and even games against artistes teams such as Spandau Ballet, Bow Wow Wow & Jah Wobble.

The Summer of 83 proved difficult, available football pitches being hard to find, so it was on a late Spring afternoon having just enjoyed a light lunch at the Palmerston, that Geoff first suggested playing the same teams at cricket ! - and with just such a humble suggestion the club was born. With only 9 members of staff, I was dispatched to find players.

The Captain was easy, Nigel Wilkinson, co-owner of nearby Honky Tonk Records who had already Captained his shop’s team against a Musicians team in Regents Park and against Paul Slattery's XI at Wormwood Scrubs. Some more recruits from that team would be required such as Kevin & Ged Murphy (no relation). John McDougall was a fellow Hockey player, Charlie Paulinski a local hospital DJ, Mark Sams, G Jones, Mark Russell - all local students and any one else from the Tufnell Park Tavern who was free.

The first season saw fixtures against Stiff records, RCA, The Scala, Rough Trade, and the inimitable Kentish Town Sun District Post Office. Top run scorer that season was Nigel with 158 @ 39.5 and Ged Murphy was the leading wicket taker with 5 @ 8.4. In 1985 came the unbeaten season 15 wins & 1 tie of the 16 completed matches. The inaugural A.G.M. was held that winter in Fat Harrys just behind The Sobell Sports Centre and the club was born.

By now several guys had joined who were to go on to make over 300 appearances - Steve Lay, Frank and John Baglivi. Matches continued to be played at Tufnell Park’s artificial pitch, with teams from The Club Cricket Conference making up fixtures for the first time. But not everybody was happy about continuing to play there. The Club had outgrown beer cans in the outfield, players in jeans and tolerating at least 2 full scale football matches by, through and over the mid wicket boundaries.

 
The first CCC fixture though did take place there - a match against Priory Park which was won by 7 wickets, a fixture which has endured. In fact the team remained unbeaten until defeat against Locks Bottom on July 13th 1986, thereby ending an run of 19 matches without loss going all the way back to 19th August 1984. Such a run has never since been equaled......