ABOUT US
Great Horwood Cricket Club is a typical village club
which began in the 1950’s although no-one seems certain of the exact year.
Cricket was played first of all on the other side of the
crossroads/roundabout nearer Nash but still on the Nash Road, before moving
to its current site in 1962 adding changing facilities in 1964 which
consisted of the old Waiting Room from the now closed Swanbourne Railway
Station. The Club ground is situated at the roundabout which links the A421
and B4033 and is on the outskirts of the village of Great Horwood.
CLICK HERE for information on the history
of the village.
The Club began by playing friendly fixtures and invitation or informal cup
and league competitions with the first recorded cup success, for which
records can be found, being the Loyal Western Lodge Cup in 1964. A
photograph of the successful team still hangs today in the pavilion. In fact
one of that team, Terry McStraw, is still playing cricket..
League cricket began again in the early 1980’s with one side playing in the
League. After success in the lower divisions, the Club finally gained
promotion to the Premier Division after winning Division 1 in 1986, a season
which also saw the Club winning the Stewkley Cup, thereby achieving our
version of the “Double”.
The pinnacle of success in this league came in 1992 when Great Horwood won
the Premier League and the Stewkley Cup thus again doing the “Double”. By
now the Club was also playing in the Buckingham & District Midweek League
and fielding a Sunday XI.
In 1994, the playing strength was of sufficient numbers to begin running a
second team in the league on Saturdays. Today we are not only running these
sides but also have an active youth coaching set-up which attracts in excess
of 40 youths to the coaching sessions. Currently we have three youth teams
playing in the Bucks Cricket Board Cricket League with plans to have teams
in all age groups in the future.
The Club moved from the Milton Keynes and District Cricket League to the
Ouse Valley League as a founder member in 1994 however we only stayed in
this league for three years before joining the larger Oxfordshire Cricket
Association League in 1997 where the 1st XI won their Division at the first
attempt. The 2nd XI has also subsequently won its Division in 2002 and has
won the Osberton Radiators Cup on three occasions in 2001, 2003 and 2007.
The strength of the Club has meant that in 2009 we entered a third team into
the OCA League. This team is playing it’s fixtures at Padbury Sportsfield
and we are indebted to Padbury Parish Council for letting us use this
facility.
A Ladies team was also playing occasional games from the early 1980’s and in
the late 80’s became a founder member of the Milton Keynes & District Ladies
League finishing Runners-up in both the league and cup competitions on a
number of occasions. The Ladies team continues to operate successfully up to
the present time.
The Club is well known in the area for running its own highly successful
invitation Six-a-Side competitions which began for the men in the early
1980’s and for the Ladies shortly afterwards. In 2002 the Club managed to
win both the Men’s and the Ladies’ Trophies for the only time in the Club’s
history. In 2006 the men’s competition became a 20:20 competition to reflect
trends at the time. In 2009 we started an Under 15 Youth Six-Side
competition for the first time. In addition to these competitions we have
the annual George Ridgway Cup competition for which the Chairman’s XI
competes with the President’s XI.
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