Flintshire cricket club looks to the future by recruiting new members

A cricket club based in Flintshire is looking to recruit new players and non-playing members for the upcoming 2021 season.

Hawarden Park Cricket Club runs four junior teams and five senior teams, including the only women’s hardball cricket team in North Wales playing in the Cheshire League.

Recently, the club entered three Saturday teams into the league for 2021 and work has started on their training facilities as well as a refit for ‘The Famous Tiki Bar’ on Moor Lane.

Steve Bliss, Social Secretary and Groundsman for Hawarden Park Cricket Club, said: “We are all very excited to start the season this year and we are hoping we will be able to start on time. 

“We run ECB’s (England and Wales Cricket Board) ‘All Stars and Dynamos’ programme for children aged 5 to 11, so we hope to get this going and get the kids back outside, playing and doing what they love.

“This year is a very big year for us as a club as we push on into the final leg of our fundraising for a new pavilion. Since moving to Moor Lane in 2016, we have been in temporary facilities and hopefully during 2022 we will have started building our new facility which will bring a new space to Hawarden which will be for us as a club but also available to local community groups.

“We have several fundraising events planned for the year and we will be looking to get as many people involved as we can.

“We are in the middle of planning our big challenge for the year which is a walk around our pitch from Hawarden Cricket to Lords Cricket in London and back which is 1200+ laps of the ground. This will be a continuous walk day and night undertaken by anybody who wants to get involved, starting on a Friday afternoon and ending on the Sunday afternoon.”

The club fared well when the pandemic hit last March, having adhered to all social distancing rules before, during and after games with no changing rooms open or cricket teas provided.

A reduced season was played once they were allowed to get underway in June and the league was changed around to reduce the amount of travel between different communities.

Steve says they had the most players to choose from at any given time last year, allowing them to enter three teams into the league for the first time.

He said: “Although in partial lockdown, last year we had the largest pool of players to choose from. We were fielding 33 different players over three games – two on Saturday and one on Sunday – which was great for us.

“So much so that we have, for the first time in HPCC history, entered three Saturday teams into the league now so player numbers have never been higher.”

Hawarden Park Cricket Club are scheduled to play their first fixture on 17 April and are hoping to start outdoor nets in the middle of March but that depends of the on current level 4 covid restrictions being lifted. 

As for recruitment, they are not looking for an exact amount of players going into the new season as Steve says: “We are a firm believer that no club can ever have too many players.”

Volunteers to help out behind the scenes, whether it be helping out with the ground, running the bar over a weekend or organising a fundraiser, are welcomed by the club.

To get in touch regarding recruitment, email [email protected] and follow Hawarden Park Cricket Club’s Facebook page, Twitter page and website for more updates.

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By Jordan Adams