Scoring a hundred is regarded as the best feeling in cricket. Sure, there’s the fifth wicket of a five-fer, the one-handed screamer at gully, or the relief of hanging on to a high ball that’s come down with snow on it, but the euphoria of bringing up three figures is incomparable.

Reaching a century requires skill, patience, determination and, for most of us, luck. For some, scoring a hundred is
 a once in a lifetime achievement. For others, it may never happen. For these four titans of club cricket who make up our 100 Hundreds Club, hitting tons is almost routine…

JOHN STUCK, 72

I last made a hundred seven weeks ago. Last summer I made eight hundreds. I was on 192 at the start of the season, and that final one brought up my 200th hundred. The slightly disappointing thing about it was that I was guesting for another team. I would have preferred to get it playing for my own team, but I wasn’t going to give it away in the nineties…

Clacton in Essex has always been my club. I’m Suffolk born and bred, so Clacton, just over the border into Essex, was a good choice for me. As a batsman and wicketkeeper it was good to play on a good pitch, and Clacton always had them. I joined in 1963 and I’ve been here ever since.

I don’t play first XI cricket any more but I still play for Clacton’s Sunday team. And I play veterans’ cricket – Suffolk Over 50s for 17 years, Essex Over 60s, and now Essex Over 70s. That’s where I get most of my runs now – for Essex Over 70s.

I was an opening batsman. I scored 107 hundreds and my hundredth was for I Zingari at Widford in Essex in 1999. I scored my first hundred when I was around 20 years old, for MCC.

My most memorable hundred was against Worcestershire 
for Shropshire at New Road. Worcester had Hartley Alleyne, Phil Newport and Richard Illingworth. So three international bowlers. I was actually bowled off a no ball before I’d scored, shouldering arms!

I remember facing Ian Botham in a school match. He was with the MCC Young Cricketers. The fastest bowler I ever faced was Wayne Daniel when he first came over from Barbados and was playing for Enfield.

I’ve played a huge amount of cricket. I went to Cambridge, didn’t get a Blue, but I did play one first-class match. I played Minor Counties for Shropshire and I played league cricket in Middlesex and Shropshire.

I was a schoolmaster for 38 years. I taught at Shrewsbury, Harrow, and Eton. I was master in charge of cricket at Shrewsbury and Harrow. As a schoolmaster, in the holidays you could almost play seven days a week! In 1988 or ’89 I got 3,700 runs.

I retired from playing when I was 47. I’d achieved everything I’d set out to achieve. I didn’t bowl very much and I gradually felt more and more uncomfortable when I was fielding. When you don’t bowl, you’re spending half a game doing something you’re not enjoying. Since then I’ve been a county second XI and Minor Counties umpire and now I umpire in the Middlesex Premier League.