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Chesham | The Meadow
chesham
the meadow
Amy Lane, Chesham, HP5 1NE
W: www.cheshamcc.co.uk
Images courtesy of Steve Ayres,
www.fi rstfortrophies.co.uk, 01494 776066 / 07966 534662
Cymru Alliance Champions
Since 1880 Meadow
Lane in
Buckinghamshire has been
the home of Chesham
Cricket Club, a club with a
long tradition of welcoming
hospitality, local legends
and a proud tradition of
consistently putting out a
diverse range of cricket
teams on a week to week
basis.
Chesham’s early history is
vague due to a rumour that
the wife of an ex-secretary,
Billy Holliman, burned
many records and
scorebooks from the clubs
founding years. An
assumption could be that
she was fed up of her
husband spending more
time in the Pavilion than at
home and decided to take
revenge!
Their first local legend
was playing for the club in
these early days and Squire
William Lowndes still
remains a major part of
folklore to this day. The
Squire was not only Captain
but also president of the
club. With The Squire also
representing Surrey
County Cricket Club at the
time he used his privileged
position to entice one of the
greatest players in the
history of cricket, W.G.
Grace, to bring an
invitational team to
Chesham for four years
between 1905 and 1908.
It was a long and turbulent
time before Chesham really
made any head way into
becoming a dominant
cricketing force but the
years between 1950 and the
early 1970’s are what are
regarded as Chesham’s
Golden Era.
During this time the club
produced countless
amounts of club legends
and county players. Names
such as Fred Harris, John
Mills, the Taylor Twins, the
Kemp Brothers, Colin Lever
and Don Reynolds will still
reverberate around the
Pavilion today, a Pavilion
that was opened in 1963 by
the great Fred Trueman.
During this Golden Era
however, nothing was done
to ensure that when these
players retired that there
was a youthful new
generation to take the club
onwards and upwards. As
a result Chesham slowly
slid down the leagues and
to resolve this, their youth
section was formed in the
early 1980’s. A testament to
the success of this youth
section is that fact that many
of these young starlets still
play for the club’s
numerous sides today. The
youth section is still
thriving as the club runs 12
junior teams.
Today the club boast vast
playing staffs that enable
them to produce four
playing teams on a
Saturday in the Thames
leagues and two Sunday
sides. The diversity in the
club comes from the fact
that in addition to the six
men’s teams there is also a
women’s team and an all
Asian team as the Rising
Stars play in the South East
Sunday League.
Cricket Club Magazine
caught up with Steve Ayres
last month. In his second
stint as Club Secretary, he
was well placed to fill us in
about the modern day
establishment.
“The Chairman and I…
re-started our junior
section about 11 years ago
and I delivered the first
training session to a group
of 3 boys. Anyway, they all
came back (with a friend)
and now we have over 200
boys and girls under the
age of 17. The most
satisfying part of all this is
the composition of our
senior first XI. A typical
side consists of the captain
at 40+, the overseas player
at 30+ and the next oldest
is 19. We have had 3
messages from the league
this year passing on
compliments from umpires
saying how impressed they
were with this young side,
not only in how they played
but also the manner of their
performance. We field 2
teams in local competitions
at every age group
between the ages of 10-15
and have an 80 player
strong mini section (9 and
under). For the past 5
years we have had a
full-time Director of
Cricket such is the
importance to the club of
our juniors.”
“We turn nobody away…
Some local clubs have
started trialling and
capping membership but
our attitude has always
been to try and provide for
anyone who wants to play.
If more people join we
enter more teams and use
more coaches. We started
a girls section a few years
ago and now we have a
senior women’s section so
those girls have a pathway
to carry on playing. We
have been a Chance2shine
club for 5 years and have
links with all the local
schools. The only part of
the community we have
struggled to engage are
those with disabilities. We
have a very difficult
pavilion to access and it
makes encouraging this
group to the club very
difficult. This is something
we are focusing on
Positively, we won a long
legal battle with the local
council 2 years ago over
planning permission for a
new pavilion - something
we are desperate to
improve. The timing of
this long battle, ultimately
won on most counts and
quite a watershed for
cricket clubs who have
pavilions on green belt
land, was that when we
started the process we
had various funding
partners lined up but the
financial changes over the
past 5 years have meant
many of these have dried
up. We are now in a
position of possibly having
to re-apply and start the
whole process again.”
“The pathway through…
club and county here is not
as straightforward as it
perhaps is for a lad from a
Middlesex or Surrey club. I
say this as a former Cricket
Development Manager
who worked hard to try
and establish better links
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Chesham | The Meadow
with first class counties but
this still has some distance
to travel.”
“The quality of young
players… we are
producing need to play at a
Premier League level, so
promotions are vital.
Inevitably we will lose
players if we cannot offer
them that level. We also
want to continue to provide
opportunities for as many
young players as we
possibly can to fall in love
with the game.”
Sponsors of Chesham Cricket Club
01494 786 176
www.chesham-insurance.co.uk
Chesham Oce, 127 Broad Street, Chesham, Bucks HP5 3EF
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