Summer Sports - Cricket
The storms of February were the straw that broke the camel’s back for Dowdeswell Cricket Club as their last remaining ‘facility’ - their machinery shed - was brought to its knees. So, in pure British Bulldog spirit, the club has relocated to the nearby village of Shipton Oliffe in an attempt to resurrect an unused facility in time for this season.
Groundsman, Ed Robinson, explains how things are progressing and suggests that cricket will be possible this year, thanks to the efforts of the few and sound advice from the Pitchcare message board
Shipton Cricket Club Ed Robinson
A beautiful setting, but ...
n late February 2014, after the particularly wet winter with heavy rain and winds decimating our ‘machine shed’ at our cricket ground, we decided that enough was enough! The old club was in the very small hamlet of Dowdeswell in the Cotswolds, and had a fairly rich history of village cricket. In the 1990s, however, the cricket stopped being played and the pavilion was torn down and the field left to grow. In around 2007, the club was reformed and started playing cricket there again although, with no facilities at all, it was never going to get very far. As groundsman for Dowdeswell for the last two seasons, it had been an uphill struggle to prepare a track each week, so it was decided that we should look for an alternative ground, which had some facilities available to use.
I Cheltenham Challenge Cup winners in 1924 62 I PC APRIL/MAY 2014
So, after seven years of banging heads against walls and getting nowhere, the main playing members took up an offer from another local village to restart the cricket
club in Shipton Oliffe.
Situated in the heart of the Cotswolds, Shipton Cricket Club has been reformed after a break of around seven years. The club has a long, although slightly patchy, history. The first match - that there seems to be any record of - was in 1914, when a group of married men played a team of single men from the village. There were two large farms in the village, so it was no trouble to find young, fit men who were keen for a game of cricket.
The club won the Cheltenham Challenge Cup in 1924, and has always had a proud history of village cricket.
More recently, the Cotswolds has been the target of second home owners, and some believe this has unfortunately led to a lack of young players coming up through the ranks and creating the strength a club requires to succeed and grow. Unfortunately, village cricket has slowly been on a downward slope, with many clubs being unable to raise
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