Cricket Club

http://www.chippenhamcc.play-cricket.com

Although there was a cricket club in Chippenham in the 50’s and 60’s this folded in 1969 and the current club wasn’t formed until 1993. Following discussions in the Tharp Arms the idea to start the club came from Darren Hughes and Andrew Tiley however the main problem was having somewhere to play. They enlisted the help of Ted Gear to contact Eustace and Ann Crawley to see if they had any land that the “ potential” club could use.

The Crawleys were very supportive and agreed to lease the club the land where the cricket ground is now situated.

At the time this was a cow field and a lot of work and money was required to turn it into a cricket ground. We nearly gave up when we found the cost of just creating the cricket square would be £12000!  However with the help of a grant from East Cambs District Council (ECDC) and a number of fund raising events, which received fantastic support from villages, we raised the money and laid the square in the spring of 1993. We could not play on the square for another 14 months but it did give us time to turn the cow field into a cricket outfield and we played all our games the first year at our opponents ground.

The first game took place at the Chippenham ground on the first Sunday in July 1994. Appropriately Colin Pammenter who had captained the team in the 60’s got a team of Chippenham players from that era together to play us. The sun shone and the village turned out in force to watch this first game which the new team won but only just!

From this moment the club has continued to grow and prosper. In 1995 we won our first trophy, The Henrotin Cup (which we one again this year) and the following year we won the Midweek League second division title. Our pavilion was built in 1998 by Brian Doyle and this was possible once again thanks to ECDC and also Sports and Arts Foundation who provided grants to help achieve this important edition. Three of our junior cricketers have represented the county in their age group.

We are also very proud to have had 6 different England cricketers speak at our annual dinner including one ex-captain Chris Cowdrey.

From the very first meeting it has always been our aim to ensure the club was part of the village. The fact that to automatically join the club a player has to live or have family in Chippenham, Snailwell or Freckenham has played a big part in achieving this. It has also meant that we have converted a number of villages previously not interested in the game in to players or spectators. Our fundraising events such as The Music Night, Cricket Dinner and Inter-village Kwick Cricket competition have become major events in the Chippenham calendar.

The ground has also been used for other village events like the Jubilee celebrations and the Mothers & Toddlers “teddy Bear’s” picnic.