Jack Hubble

John Charlton Hubble (10 February 1881 – 26 February 1965), known as Jack Hubble, was an English professional cricketer who played first-class cricket for Kent County Cricket Club in the first half of the 20th century. He was a right-handed batsman and wicket-keeper who played professionally for 25 years and was part of the Kent teams which won four County Championships before World War I.

Cricket career Hubble joined Kent as a First XI player in 1904, making his debut against Gloucestershire at the Angel Ground in Tonbridge where he had been part of the Tonbridge Nursery, Kent's turn-of-the-century training ground for young professionals under Captain William McCanlis. He played few matches for the First XI initially and was used mainly as a batsman, the wicket-keeping position being held by Fred Huish in the years before the First World War. He played nine times in the 1906 team which won the County Championship for the first time in the club's history, but did not play more than ten games until 1910. He continued to play regularly until the end of the 1926 County Championship season when Les Ames succeeded him as the main wicket-keeper. Between them Huish, Hubble and Ames are considered the first in the line of great Kent wicket-keepers. The three men filled the role for Kent for half a century. He was invited to play in a first-class match for Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) against a South African Invitational XI at Benoni in December. He never played international cricket, although he is often considered to be unlucky not to have done so. He played just five first-class matches in 1928 and 1929 combined, ending his first-class career playing for MCC against the Royal Navy in July 1929. He joined forces with former teammates Les Ames and Tich Freeman after the Second World War, setting up stores under the names Hubble and Ames in Gillingham and Hubble and Freeman in Canterbury and Maidstone. The company later merged with Readers who manufactured cricket balls and was eventually taken over by Kookaburra Sport. The stores closed in 2012.

Hubble coached cricket in South Africa for a number of years and after retirement became a qualified umpire. He died in 1965 aged 84. Hubble's nephew, Harold Hubble, also played first-class cricket for Kent for three seasons.