Speldhurst Cricket Club

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We are a locally-focused friendly cricket club, focused on moving youngsters through their young cricketing careers onto high-quality, competitive league cricket in the Kent County Village League. We have two league teams, our 1st XI is back where it belongs – Division 1 – and is looking for a triumphant return, facing all our local rivals once again. Our newly developed 2nd XI is in Division 7, and is focused on giving the younger generation a taste of competetive cricket.

Our 50 youngest members joined as a result of a major new initiative by the ECB – All Stars Cricket – which is aimed at introducing youngsters to cricket at the earliest possible age. The ECB describes All Stars Cricket, which is played with soft balls, as “a great first experience in cricket” and is vital for getting the younger generation enthused in the game. We are delighted to be a pert of this great initiative, and if you are interested, please do not hesitiate to get in touch. Visit the ECB SCC All Stars Page here.

149 years of cricket in Speldhurst

Organised cricket in the Tunbridge Wells area dates back to the late 18th century but the first record, in The Courier, of a Speldhurst team was in 1869.

Over the next 150 years, cricket in Speldhurst developed slowly and as recently as the 60s Speldhurst Cricket Club was a typical village club with one team on Saturdayand one on Sunday with the added spice of evening midweek matches which can now be seen as the original T20 matches. The 60s also brought the Club’s first (and only) international match v Canada.

The Club now has a significantly broader membership, supported in part by four prestigious sponsors, with two teams playing in the Kent Village League on Saturdays and a Sunday team playing friendly fixtures. The biggest revolution for the Club was the creation of a Junior section in 2001 which now provides coaching for children from Under 7s age groups through to U9s, U11s and U13s. The Club currently has over 80 youngsters in these age groups. In 2019 we will be extending our coaching to older age groups in order to boost confidence for our young players as they transition into the adult teams.

In 2017 we participated in the reknowned national campaign launched by the ECB aimed at introducing cricket to youngsters from the age of five and has been heavily marketed through social media, press and radio nationwide. As part of the All Stars Cricket initiatuive, Speldhurst has been providing coaching to U7s for the past two seasons help introduce young peopel to the great game, and further secure the future prosperity of our Club – the largest voluntary organisation for Juniors in the village.

In addition to scheduled league and friendly fixtures, the Club hosted a Charity match on the afternoon of Monday 29 May 2017 to raise funds for Headway West Kent, a local charity.