Cricket East

In order to keep children in the sport, the club is focusing on ensuring they have a safe, fun and friendly environment – so it’s not just about the cricket, it’s a place to meet friends and do something different, while developing and building cricket skills.

The Club has decided to change from a summer club to an all-seasons club! In order to maintain costs, parents have agreed to pay a monthly membership of £15 per child. This will help the club with finances and gives parents peace of mind that anything they need to pay for is covered in the subscription. The Club has adopted a flexible policy for those who may not be able to afford the monthly subscription and will work with those parents to ensure children can still play and enjoy themselves.

Monthly membership will include all match and training fees (excluding one-to-one sessions), training shirt and trousers kindly supplied by Surridge Sports and free inclusion to a summer camp in the school break.

Mike Farmer, Youth Development Officer at the Club said: “As the Club is called ‘Huntingdon & District’ and is part of a large town, I felt that it should be one of the biggest and best! To become a more attractive club, we are focusing on ‘how we look’ to the community and to other clubs. We have secured Surridge Sports to provide our youth training kits (adults are now following suit) and we are using social media (Facebook and Instagram) to promote the club and its activities.

“We have lots to be proud of and shout about including 5 children who are county players – two U11 boys, one U9 girl, one U13 girl and one U15 boy. Also, last year our U9s reached the county finals with all the players being newcomers to the sport and bonding well to reach such a great achievement.

“Upcoming plans include promoting our All Stars Cricket in the town centre, a two- week summer camp in the school break for children of all ages, an U9 tournament at Hemingford Grey on 19 May and the Cricket World Cup will be shown at the Club as much as possible over the summer!”

The club will also be celebrating the start of the season with a club event on Sunday 14 April. The day will kick off at 10am with NatWest CricketForce where family and friends will be getting the ground ready for the new season. Membership sign up will be 1-2pm and a ‘Club War’ – Senior v Youth will take place 2-5pm. The bar will be open and there will be a BBQ!

The club are clearly working hard to secure their future and Cricket East commends them for their forward-thinking approach. We wish them every success with their youth development plans.