Lapworth Cricket Club

Review of 2024 Season

The season finished in early September and since then we have been busy doing the myriads of end of season work involved in putting the ground “to bed” for the winter. The key job is the renovation of the cricket square which entails a deep scarification of the surface then the whole area is reseeded and finally 2 tons of loam is spread evenly across the square. Just a few short years ago this was all done by hand fortunately these days machinery takes the strain.

So how did the cricket go in 2024. Well, it was very much like the curate’s egg across all three of our Saturday teams – good in parts.

1st Team – secured their place in the Premier Division of the CHL for 2025 when on the last Saturday of the season they beat Long Itchington and condemned them to life in Div.1 next season. The last 6/7 games were in fact a tremendous performance by our young and inexperienced first XI in there ultimately successful battle to avoid relegation. The wonderful team spirit created in this side was a credit to the 1s captain.

2nd Team – the 2s had a really good first half of the season – thankfully – because first team calls and holidays took their toll and the second period was “difficult” and relegation was becoming a real possibility – fortunately the players dug deep and picked up enough bonus points from those losses to secure their position in the division for 2025. It made for exciting cricket and our fate was again, not decided until the last weekend of the season.

3rd Team – enjoyed their best season in the Warwickshire League winning more games than any other season since being formed in 2019. Many of our younger players played in this team and the third team is a brilliant way for the youngsters to develop their skills and techniques along with the support that they get from the older members.

Sunday XI – we joined the Arden Sunday league this season so a substantial change for the players in playing competitive cricket instead of “friendlies”. The lads acquitted themselves superbly and with two games to go a fourth-place finish was on the cards – the required wins did not materialise, and we slipped away to a bottom half finish. Our first season in the Arden League was definitely a success.

AllStars/Juniors – we launched our Junior section this season and we had an u11 and u13 teams playing in the Warwickshire league – the Juniors section was a real success story with young children playing competitive cricket for the first time under the watchful gaze of their parents – we also had an AllStars soft ball game v K&D. There were some fabulous nights at Lapworth including the end of season finale of the Children v the Parents – won of course by the Children!

And finally a heads up for next season – we will be launching some exciting plans to develop our Junior section early in 2025 so if you have a child/children in AllStars 5 – 8 age group or the Juniors 8 – 14 age group who want to “Learn to play Cricket” so please watch for those announcements either here or the Club website https://lapworthcc.co.uk/ and remember Monday nights at Lapworth Cricket Club is the place to be.

Richard Evans