appeared for Bristol and District Cricket Association between 1967 and 1976, before becoming a stalwart at Keynsham Cricket Club, where his mother made the club teas. Trescothick was immersed into cricket from an early age; the notice announcing his birth in the local newspaper had a quote from his father saying "he will have every encouragement to become a cricketer when he grows up", and he received his first cricket bat when he was eleven months old. During his time at St Anne's primary school, he was chosen to play for the Avon School under-11 cricket team. He scored the first century for Avon, striking 124 against Devon, and a couple of weeks later remained not out on 183 when he coach declared the innings closed, claiming "if I let him get a double-hundred at his age, what else would he have to aim for?" That score created some interest in the local media, and Gloucestershire County Cricket Club invited him to play for their under-11 team. In his second match for the county, he scored a century against Somerset, who then discovered that Trescothick, living in Keynsham, was qualified to play for them, and he switched from Gloucestershire to Somerset, proud to play for his father's old county. His education continued at the Sir Bernard Lovell School in Oldland Common near Bristol, and by the age of 14 he was playing alongside his father for Keynsham in the Western League. Around the same time, he was selected to play for the England under-14s alongside future international team-mates Andrew Flintoff and Paul Collingwood. In his autobiography, Coming Back to Me, Trescothick recalls that he was bigger than most of the other boys his age, which gave him a strength advantage, enabling him to hit the ball harder and further than others. At the same time, concerns were raised about his "portly" figure, with suggestions that he would need to work on his fitness. The following season, aged 15, Trescothick scored 4,000 runs between all the different teams he was representing, which by this time included the Somerset under-19s. He was named as the "outstanding young cricketer of the year" by The Cricketer. He was nicknamed Tresco and Banger, the latter deriving from his diet as a young player: My diet was sausages then, in no particular order, sausages, chips, sausages, toast, sausages, beans, sausages, cheese, sausages, eggs, and the occasional