Death of village cricket and Kent’s founding links to sport
From Saxon origins to the humdrum of the T20 Blast, Kent has intrinsic links to one of the world’s oldest sports but is the grassroots game dying? Ben Austin looks at the game’s past, present and future...
The history of Kent and cricket lie in tandem with one another.
Experts agree the sport’s origin likely stems from Saxon children playing a primitive version of it in the Weald area in the 1300s.
Played by shepherds, the Kentish woodlands and pastures made the perfect place to play as the grass was grazed to a shortened length allowing the ball to be bowled.
Being more of a children’s past time, records of the sport are sparse but on January 17, 1597, the first definitive reference to cricket was made – albeit in Surrey.
John Derrick, a coroner in testimony for a legal case regarding the usage of a piece of land, stated he had played cricket in the Guildford area as a boy.
By 1611 the sport was seen as an adult hobby with the first recorded game being played in Chevening, near Sevenoaks, between two teams representing the Weald and Downs areas.
The first records of gambling on a match were in 1646 between a team from Coxheath and another from Maidstone at the Star Inn ground.
This is believed to have been on the common opposite the pub which is thought to have been located just inside Linton Park today at the A229 and Heath Road crossroads.
During the 19th century, Kentish teams dominated the domestic scene with one of the more successful clubs, Beverley Cricket Club, playing on the now Beverley Meadow in Canterbury.
They would later go on to form the Kent County Cricket Club known today yet the modern descendants of the Beverley club are Canterbury CC which plays just outside the city at the Polo Farm sports complex.
Overarm bowling is also claimed to be founded in Kent by a woman from Headcorn.
Kent County Cricket Club player, John Willes, in 1807, was unable to play a match due to illness and so practised in his garden with his sister Christina.
It was customary to bowl underarm but due to her hooped skirt, it was difficult to bowl in that style.
She decided therefore to bowl above it and in doing so found it to be faster and more successful.
Seen more as a fairytale now, it shows the rich history the sport shares with the county.
Summer would not be the same without cricket – going to a local pub, looking yonder towards a village green soaking in the sun, and watching a marvellous innings be displayed in front of you.
But in recent years fewer people are indulging in the world’s second most popular sport.
Since 2007 those involved in playing cricket at the grassroots level in England has reduced from 419,500 to 229,100 – a 45% decrease.
And this decline is having its effect on Kent clubs.
Previous league regulars like Hollingbourne Cricket Club – which was established in 1870 – pulled out of the Kent Village Cricket League in 2018 and fully folded just one year later due to a lack of players.
Even this year clubs are folding because they struggle to put a side out each week – most recently Loose Cricket Club
near Maidstone which this year ended in what was to be their centenary season.
Meanwhile, other sides have been forced to merge in recent years and throughout the course of the last decade.
Former Loose CC chairman Cyril Davey warned of the decline when he resigned from his position at the club in 2016.
“To say I’m disappointed at what’s happened is an understatement – and in our centenary year,” he said.
“I’ve been there 49 years, the same year we joined the Kent Village League – it’s such a shame to see it end like this.”
But it is a problem which can be heard echoing across the whole county.
Richard Durrant, Chairman of Canterbury Cricket Club said: “I think village cricket has started to die over the last 10 years.
“Canterbury used to play in the South East village league and the Kent League but in the Kent village and regional leagues there has been a massive dropout of teams.
“You play same people year in year out and one by one over the last four or five years they do seem to be dropping out – it’s quite a worry really people have lost interest.”
Rhod Bailey is a committee member of the Kent Regional League and lifelong player at
Rumwood CC, located in Otham near Maidstone.
He said: “If you go back to village cricket it started dying out 40 years ago.
“Yorkshire and Kent are the only two strongholds left but both have been losing 10% a year for the last five years.”
But why? Whichever way it’s looked at, village cricket appears to be dying.
Cyril believed a lack of youth interest in the game and the inability to attract new young talent was a key fault to his beloved club’s folding.
He said: “For a club to survive, you’ve got to get youngsters involved and run a junior section.
“You rely on them coming through. If you don’t have youngsters, you’ve had it.
“We used to have 54 youngsters and then when we left Old Drive the Kent Cricket Board wouldn’t renew our Clubmark status without a pavilion so we lost them to other clubs.”
Clubs with a strong youth section are the ones that seem to be thriving.
Canterbury CC regularly put out four sides on weekends thanks to a healthy number of colts being given opportunities at the senior level.
Richard said: “Over the last 12 years we have had quite a successful youth section set up.
“You only need to look at the make-up of our four Saturday sides and 75-80% of them are under 23.
“I think the average age of our first team is about 21 now and our second team is even younger.
“We’ve been lucky because of youth to keep the teams going. If we hadn’t had that we’d be lucky to put two teams out.”
David Day, the chairman of Rumwood CC, also played for Hollingbourne.
He said: “They used to have a thriving youth club, but then certain people left, and the youth section began to decline.
“Then interestingly there was no progression for the players into the first or second team and now they have no team at all.”
Youth is always the way forward, but it comes with a double-edged sword.
Rhod said: “Most of the kids just aren’t interested in cricket they’re not playing it at schools they’re all on their phones or whatever and there’s just no interest in cricket anymore.”
Richard added: “When I was 15 in the summer you would go play cricket. There wasn’t a football or rugby tournament every week like kids have nowadays.”
For amateur and smaller village clubs, everything hinges on the volunteers to pass up time
and their enthusiasm for the game and it’s when the coaching and helpers thinned for the doomed sides so too did the colts and then the club altogether.
Bringing juniors through the club has a kick-on effect above. Colts do work their way towards senior level but in some situations struggle to get a game through the competitive nature cricket has recently adopted.
Richard said: “Cricket like any sport today is much more competitive now. People put a lot more emphasis on winning rather than just playing.
“This is the issue with league cricket, it puts on more pressure on teams to want to get promoted and not on just going out and enjoying a day with mates.”
Commitments to family and jobs mean less opportunity for people to participate in organised sports.
Richard said: “People live busier lives nowadays to spend six or seven hours on a Saturday to play cricket is a bit much.
“There is quite a call on Saturday cricket and as a result Sunday cricket has fallen by the wayside.
“The advent of T20 cricket as well where it may be good for crowds and keep counties afloat and the Hundred as well, it suggests the game can be played in three hours.
“People think ‘do I want to go out and play 40-50 overs and go out from 10am all the way through to 7pm and I think the answer is becoming no.”
In 2006, the first NatWest T20 Blast tournament – of 20 overs per side (120 balls) – kicked off and last year the introduction of an even shorter format known as the Hundred (100 balls per innings) was launched.
Both were designed to grow interest in the sport by shortening the game in favour of more fast-paced action.
David said: “You have a lot of coverage in the media of the T20 stuff and as a colt you might like playing your game of 20 overs.
“But then they hated play
‘You play same people year in year out and one by one over the last four or five years they do seem to be dropping out - it’s quite a worry really people have lost interest’
ing 40 overs and not doing anything.”
Perhaps then the key to the future of the game is building more inclusive competitive cricket for all ages and less focus on the will to win.
Wye CC, located in the village near Ashford, became a victim of its own success in the Kent Village League (KVL) having won back-to-back promotions in 2015 and 2016 to reach Division 1.
But without the support of younger players coming through and a few players leaving for other commitments or taking a step back and becoming disinterested at the standard higher, it became a huge struggle and the club was forced to pull out of the league in 2018, playing friendlies for the next three
seasons.
Now, the club is seeing the fruits of the junior section it launched in 2013 with children from primary school age playing and fielding sides in the Ashford junior league from under 11s to under 15s.
Many of those older juniors are now being blood into to the senior teams on Saturdays and Sundays and this season has returned to the KVL fold with a focus on blending senior players with the many under 18s.
And for the first time in several seasons even putting out two Sunday teams on some weeks.
Richard from Canterbury CC added: “None of us play to lose every week but there is something in playing for fun and I feel a lot of that has gone and I have to say T20 cricket has a lot to do with that.
“No one ever interviews the losing captain or the guy who did well on the losing side.
“Everyone wants to be the star who won the game, so I think
there is too much emphasis on winning.”
And it’s this mentality that has slowly killed the amateur nature of the sport.
Before games would be timed and finished by a certain hour – if no result was declared then the match would end as a draw.
Now in the limited-overs format games generally end with a result benefitting the competitive side but perhaps taking away more of the social aspect.
Sam Boyns, Gore Court CC’s captain, who plays in Sittingbourne, said: “With villages more committed to league cricket over friendlies there’s not really a demand for it.
“There seems to be less of a social event now, I think.
“When I first started playing my dad was always quite big on making sure you stay for a drink with the other team and have a bit of a chat.”
Getting to know new people and sharing laughs about the weekend - that’s what makes village cricket.
The traditional ‘village’ clubs also inadvertently promote the loyalty side of the sport.
If someone is happily playing for a team, switching clubs would not be on their mind.
Sam said: “I quite enjoy still playing at Linton on Sundays.
“I enjoy the company I play with I have a somewhat sense of loyalty to the club as it’s where I started playing it’s where my dad played.”
“With league cricket today, you want to win more than wanting a good day out.
“If you are far stronger than another side, you beat them by 3pm then you go home. I think this pushes people away.”
Cricket has become about who has the best team and not enjoying an afternoon playing a sport.
Players have been put off by this new attitude.
On the other side of the coin, players that are getting a game are wanting to test their abilities at the highest standard.
Their loyalties lie with their own game and not the team that has established their talents.
Richard said: “I do think playing with your mates, to some of us, is important but for others, it doesn’t seem so.
“What should be encouraged is you start at your club, and you should stay at your club, but I feel the Kent pathway forces young talent to congregate towards big clubs.
“In the county set up, there is a real risk they will go play cricket somewhere where they get paid instead of playing with their mates.”
It seems then modern life killing this old-fashioned village sense. There is no need to visit your local butchers, bakers, or greengrocer, as your entire shop can be done online.
No need to visit the pub and chat with close friends as Facebook can keep us connected wherever we are.
A typical village bares little importance over society as people can travel around the world in a day.
It is that village spirit, that closeness, that is dying in cricket.
That sense of pride over your local team, finding out the results on the village hall’s notice board.
There is too much focus on individual goals and competition for village cricket to survive in the format it once was.
Perhaps then village cricket should evolve with the time if it is to not be left behind; forgotten to the sands of time.
It still has a place today but if it does not change course soon, the ideal summer afternoon in a secluded field, chasing a ball of leather and cork for fun may cease to exist.
‘Yorkshire and Kent are the only two strongholds left but both have been losing 10% a year for the last five years...’