Wiltshire Cricket celebrates Under 9s Club Cricket in 2023
After increased focus on Under 9s Cricket in 2023, we are delighted to share the activity that has taken place throughout the summer, with a particular shout out to Swindon CC, Cricklade CC and Corsham CC for offering the highest number of games for their Under 9s!
At the start of this season, Wiltshire Cricket conducted a consultation process with clubs to identify the importance of Under 9s Cricket and what it needed to look like for clubs across Wiltshire.
Coming out of this consultation it was identified that having a really vibrant Under 9s offer was of importance in order to:
- Capitalise on the high interest levels from our All Stars and Dynamos programmes
- Provide exposure to the first form of competition for our young cricketers
- Ensure there is a competition format to bridge the gap between All Stars / Dynamos and the beginning of the WYCL offer at Under 11s
As a consequence of this, greater effort was provided this year to coordinate under 9s festivals across clubs and to provide resources to assist clubs with delivering those festivals.
As a result, we have been delighted to be able to capture and record the following Under 9s activity:
able to capture and record the following Under 9s festivals
2023 Under 9s Festivals
The final Under 9s League Table for 2023
In terms of how this information has been used, Wiltshire Cricket has combined all of the cumulative fixtures played from across these festivals in to one master Under 9s division which can be found here; https://wiltsclubcomps.play-cricket.com/website/division/113215
*Please note that the intention from this division is in no ways to reward teams for winning and is instead about recognising the amount of activity that has gone on during the season
*Additionally, we would also note that this does not represent the full scale of Under 9s matchplay that will have taken place as we recognise that some clubs have played friendly fixtures against other clubs outside of festival formats.
However, we hope that the table has some meaning in showing how much activity certain clubs have provided and on that note Wiltshire Cricket would particularly mention the following clubs for the amount of Under 9s matchplay they have provided:
- Swindon CC – 31 matches
- Cricklade CC – 25 matches
- Corsham CC – 22 matches
However, a big well done to all teams who have provided Under 9s opportunity for their players in 2023.
Feedback and impact of Under 9s Cricket in 2023
Finally, Wiltshire Cricket would like to thank clubs for their feedback so far on how Under 9s Cricket in 2023 operated. From initial feedback, these are some of the comments and themes that have come through:
- “U9s has been a great success. Having more structure has enabled us to promote U9s as more of a 'thing'”
- “I would say the different festivals worked well, although a couple were played as competitive festivals which didn't sit well with a number of our parents”.
- “We are looking forward to running U9s again in 2024”.
- “Our U9s really enjoyed the festivals. The children and volunteer coaches got a lot out of the festivals and the children loved having the opportunity to compete against their peers”
- “Our coaches were very anxious about running U9 festivals and didn’t feel confident enough to run an external festival this season but after running a couple of successful internal festivals they feel confident enough to run an external festival next season … and are actually very excited about the prospect”
- “We have a great set up now for the U9's. We are all inclusive and select all players that are available”
Overwhelmingly there seems to have been some really positive outcomes from Under 9s Cricket in 2023. Perhaps with some more work to promote the ethos of the festivals together with some further guidance on how to run the festivals we can further improve and increase the number of festivals in 2024.
On that note, we will be back in touch later in the winter to start the planning for 2024!
