As you might have noticed (!), we are celebrating our 200th anniversary this year. Last Saturday, we were honoured to host Beaconsfield’s Mayor, Paul Mason, who launched this, our 200th, season.

He congratulated us on reaching this milestone, briefly summarised our history and spoke about our ongoing importance in the local community, before unveiling a bench originally from Lord’s, which was kindly donated by Beaconsfield Town Council to celebrate our anniversary.

VERY BRIEF HISTORY
(Information courtesy of Mike Knox, Club Historian, who has written a book on our history – ‘200 Not Out’, available from the club bar for £10)

Founded in 1825, Beaconsfield CC is one of the oldest Clubs in Bucks. Originally a pure men's club, we played in White Hart Meadow (now Horseshoe Crescent) before moving to our current location in Wilton Park in about 1890, playing on what is now called Pitch 1. The 2nd pitch was added in 1930 and the nursery pitch in 1995. Boys' cricket began in 1945; girls’ cricket was introduced in 2015; Women’s cricket in 2016.

In 1936, there were 150 playing men and social members. Since then, we have gone from strength to strength and now have roughly 600 members across all sections, who enjoy these beautiful grounds. In the various leagues, we field 4 men's teams, 2 women's teams and 20 junior teams. We have the largest juniors' section and the largest girls' section in Bucks, with the girls’ section, at over 170 members, one of the largest in the country.

We invest heavily in the quality of provision of training and facilities. We obviously take the quality of our pitches seriously (in fact our groundsman, Barney, was presented with a lifetime achievement award by Cricket World magazine at Lord’s last September); we also take very seriously our responsibility as one of the ‘lungs’ of Beaconsfield, wanting to retain the natural beauty of our grounds.

We engage with the local community – for example in hosting Bucks Schools competitions and local schools, the annual Fireworks display, flu clinics, and local anglers.

THE LORD’S BENCH
Installed in the old Mound Stand (so-called because it was built on a mound of clay that occupied that side of the ground, and designed by Frank Verity), in the late 1890s, it served spectators there for nearly 90 years before the stand was redeveloped. Those lucky spectators witnessed the exploits of WG Grace, Dennis Compton and Ian Botham, and now they can see the very best performances that Beaconsfield has to offer. Who knows whether this bench will witness stars of the future in action at Beaconsfield CC!!

It was procured by Beaconsfield Trees and Town Group and presented to the town in 1987, taking pride of place between the Town Hall and the station until recently.

Thank you to Beaconsfield Town Council (and Jeanette Buckle in liaising with us) for donating this bench. A little piece of history from the Home of Cricket, which we will treasure.

BCC TODAY
BCC is more than just an established and successful cricket club. We are a community; a family – in some ways, quite literally, with several generations from the same families playing or volunteering over the decades; with partners playing together today; with some players recruiting members of their family to help build a cricket bat bench, cater or look after the flowers. Art, grandson of Albert North, one of our longest-serving groundsmen even turned up to our 200th launch, as he had fond memories of helping out at the ground in his youth, before leaving the area. Good and life-long friendships have been and continue to be forged by people who had not met until they joined the club; many good memories made. The increasing popularity of our social events is also testament to this.

Crucial to helping create this family are the volunteers - a heartfelt thank you to all of them, without whom the club would not exist in its current guise. Also key are our sponsors - Bovingdons, our main sponsor, and SDE - their support is incredibly important in enabling us to deliver the quality of provision of cricket training and facilities that we do.

Of course, there are weak links in our armour. For example... Poor drainage, resulting in very large puddles and ducks taking up residence on the pitch, causing us to have to cancel matches, do not help with Barney’s blood pressure or scoring points in the leagues. The clubhouse was built in 1937 and the tea pavilion in 1930 - they are no longer fit for purpose, especially for our women and girls, and cost an increasingly disproportionate amount to maintain. The committee is in the early stages of investigation on how to address these issues – we are grateful for the support from Bucks Cricket and ECB.

However, in the meantime, we continue to focus on our mission of providing a welcoming environment that attracts a wide cross-section of the local community, all united by a love of cricket - from the U5 who has never played before, to the elite amateur, to the passionate supporter. We want cricket at Beaconsfield to be competitive and fun, and expect our members to play in the spirit of the game. We believe we’re doing a pretty good job and hence laying the foundations for the next 200 years.