What a great summer for cricket, we have lost hardly any matches to the weather – a vast improvement on last year!

The season is now drawing to a close, junior cricket is finished with all teams playing well and winning most of their matches, as anyone who passes our ground on a Tuesday evening will have noticed we have about 70 juniors attending our coaching and the talent and enthusiasm amongst them is a joy to watch.

Ladies cricket has also continued this season with some of the juniors now eligible to play our numbers are increasing and should continue over the next few years which is good for the club.

Senior cricket – the first team have won promotion to Division 3 of the Cherwell League and may yet go up as Champions. The second team are also on course to win promotion for the third season in a row and will hopefully play in Division 6 next year. All our senior teams consist of local players – in fact the majority of both teams have come through our junior coaching which is something we are proud of. We have now agreed a sponsorship deal with Plus-One Personnel who are sponsoring the shirts for the first team. We are also in discussions regarding sponsorship for the second team for next season.

We wrote in the summer issue about the improvements to the ground and we now have new fencing on two boundaries, and a notice board at the entrance to the ground. Our plans for the new pavilion are continuing, we have now been assessed for ClubMark and will find out in the next few weeks if we have achieved it- fingers crossed as this will help the club in finding funding streams to build the pavilion.

The Cricket Club is a thriving part of the village and we are happy to share it however we have had a lot of issues this year with dog pooh on the cricket field – an area is that is regularly used by all including children. This has become such an issue that whilst we do not particularly want to, if we see anyone not clearing up after their dog we shall have to report the owners to the Dog Warden. Please if you wish to walk your dog on our field ensure you pick up after it, there is a dog pooh bin near the entrance.

It has been a good year for the Club, lots of cricket, improvements to the ground, our Annual Dinner Dance is a sell out with over 100 attending, but let’s not forget the people who come along to watch our matches or to have a drink, we thank them for their continued support.

All our events and fixtures re on our website www.horleycc.co.uk or log on via the village website and we look forward to seeing you all soon.

Kind regards

David and Judith