Wiltshire Cricket releases dates of club Under 9s Festivals for the 2024 season
Following a hugely successful 2023 in terms of growing the profile of Under 9s Club Cricket, we are delighted to return with a comprehensive offering of Under 9s Cricket in 2024.
What was done in 2023?
- Throughout last winter, Wiltshire Cricket ran a series of evenings to consult on Under 9s Cricket and to understand what might help to increase confidence of clubs to host Under 9s festivals and/or run more Under 9s teams themselves.
- As a result of these evenings, Wiltshire Cricket produced a number of resources to support clubs in running Under 9s festivals. I have re-attached some of these resources so that you can see what was produced
- We also coordinated responses to enable us to create a list lead contacts for Under 9s Cricket at each club and produced a final list of Under 9s festivals that would be taking place in 2023
- We collated results / participation from all Under 9s festivals and uploaded this to our play-cricket website here; https://wiltsclubcomps.play-cricket.com/Competitions?season=256. We also created a table based purely on matches played rather than results which showcased the total number of games played by each club from across all festivals that took place. This table can be viewed here; https://wiltsclubcomps.play-cricket.com/website/division/113215
- As a result of this, we recognised the three clubs who (to our awareness) played the most Under 9s matches in the 2023 season at our Grassroots Cricket Awards evening; https://www.wiltshirecricket.co.uk/news/2023-11-17/amazing-volunteers-recognised-at-our-2023-grassroots-cricket-awards-evening.html
Why is Under 9s Cricket important?
In terms of the rationale for being so pro-active in pushing the importance of Under 9s Cricket, we would repeat some of the messaging from last year …
Given the fantastic numbers we are seeing within All Stars and Dynamos Cricket it is really important that we have a strong Under 9s offer throughout the county 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
Under 9s Cricket in 2024
In recent weeks, Wiltshire Cricket has consulted with clubs regarding their Under 9s Cricket plans for the coming season, and through this consultation has identified the clubs that will be delivering Under 9s festivals this season. We have also collated a database of lead Under 9s contacts so that clubs can work together to arrange local fixtures in addition to festivals. We are delighted to announce that the following festivals will be taking place this summer:
| DATE | CLUB |
| Sunday 19th May | Swindon CC |
| Sunday 2nd June | Calne CC |
| Sunday 2nd June | Heytesbury and Sutton Veny CC |
| Sunday 9th June | Corsham CC |
| Sunday 16th June | Bradford on Avon CC |
| Sunday 16th June | Royal Wootton Bassett CC |
| Sunday 23rd June | Biddestone CC |
| Sunday 23rd June | Westbury and District CC |
| Sunday7th July | Wilcot CC |
| Sunday 7th July | Chippenham CC |
| Sunday 14th July | Calne CC |
| Sunday 21st July | Corsham CC |
| Sunday18th August | Cricklade CC |
Lead contacts at clubs have been emailed with the details of who is organising each festival, therefore if your club would like to enter any of the festivals above, please speak to your Under 9 lead who will have the details on how to enter.
Additionally, if your club is not listed above but you do have capacity to enter festivals then please contact Pete Sykes and we will update our list of festivals for the coming season:
