Kent County Cricket Club coach Adam Hollioake hired the “non-denominational geopathic surveyor” to end last season’s hoodoo when they were bottom of the league
A cricket club has booked a faith healer to stump evil spirits following a disastrous season. Kent County Cricket Club coach Adam Hollioake hired the “non-denominational geopathic surveyor” to end last season’s hoodoo when they were bottom of the league.
The former England captain revealed that the faith healer came to “to ward off evil spirits” from the club’s 179-year-old St Lawrence Ground at Canterbury.
Kent’s 2025 season was dogged by ill-fortune, becoming the first county to be docked eight points for poor discipline, including dissent and equipment abuse.
They also lost a series of senior players to injury. One match saw Kent batsmen Ben Compton and Tawanda Muyeye collide in mid pitch while attempting a run.
The former hurt his wrist and the latter suffered concussion. Geopathy is a theory that claims the Earth’s vibrations create ley-lines and other unusual phenomena and is often considered a pseudoscience.
Kent CCC stressed that belief in geopathy is not shared across the county’s staff.
A Kent CCC statement said: “The club fully respects the diverse range of personal beliefs held by its players, staff, members and supporters.
“The club’s approach to player welfare and injury prevention remains firmly rooted in professional sports science.”
While the use of a faith healer is thought to be a new departure for the sport of cricket, football managers of the past have turned to the supernatural in the hope of improving their results.
Don Revie, the Leeds and England manager of the 1960s and 70s, was particularly superstitious. In 1967, he summoned a promenade fortune teller from Scarborough to remove a curse from Elland Road in 1967.
One of Gypsy Rose Lee’s tactics was to scatter seeds at all four corners of the ground in an attempt to drive away the malign spirits.
In the mid-1990s, Birmingham City’s eccentric manager Barry Fry tried a similar tactic in an attempt to lift a supposed curse on the St Andrew’s ground. In Fry’s case, he preferred to urinate on the four corner fags.