This season at Mayfield Cricket Club there has been a momentum gained with the colts section. With some 90 children from the locality at the club the Friday nights at the club have rarely been busier.

The season actually started in the winter months with a 10 week coaching programme at Holmewood House school, Royal Tunbridge Wells. This was the first time a dedicated session had been planned and delivered for the Colts ‘out of season’. This is where I believe the foundations were laid for the successful season we’ve just had.

With the mantra of making every child the very best cricketer they can the outdoor sessions started in the Spring at The Wellbrook. By this stage we had entered both the East Area age groups at Under 11, Under 12 and under 14 and the Sussex Junior Cricket Festival (SJCF) at under 11 and under 13 . This was always going to be a season of suck it and see as I had no firm idea as to how many children we had at each age group!

The East Area league games were almost all played on an evening home and away usually starting at 6pm from May through to July. Our first trip was to Pett which having travelled 2 hours to get there from Guildford that day it took some doing! The sign entering the village tickled me “Please drive carefully” and I thought to myself they haven’t seen how we drive the ball then ! We won a few and lost a few more but with a particularly young side it’s not the winning that matters it’s what is learnt from the game and player development To show the dedication of our young girls and boys (as well as the parents ) one week we travelled 250 to get to and fro the various games we played.

During the summer holidays the SJCF is run by a group of keen volunteers. It stretches right across the whole of Sussex with the Bowl and Shield in each age group. Each week of the school holidays is one age group and culminates in a final on the Sunday. This year we entered at under 13 and under 11 with a lot of our players playing in both sides !

In the under 11 age group and the first game being cancelled because of rain in order to progress to the final we needed to win all our remaining games and that’s exactly what we did. We played games versus Felbridge & Sunnyside, Eastbourne & Crawley Eagles winning each one. Our opponents on the Sunday in the final were Glynde & Beddingham CC. They batted first and were going along nicely at 73 for 3 wickets but after some fine bowling we dismissed for just 10 more runs. We adopted the position where to maintain interest in the game all the children that were able to bowl did. All 10 outfield players had at least 2 overs each. This wasn’t the stance that our opponents took which I suspect was because of the low total they had set with just 5 bowlers setting about our batsmen. In just 15 nervous overs we achieved the winning score. Next season we will be entered into the Bowl competition at the next age group up and will host the under 11 final at Mayfield.

Finally albeit the adults season has now finished the colts haven’t. The under 10 softball side are in a final of their own on the hollowed ground at Hove. In a couple of weeks time on 28th September along with 5 other clubs we battle it out to see who the champions of Sussex are. Watch this space !