Club Watch - Frenchay Cricket Club

The GCB is fully aware and extremely proud of all the hard work that is going on at clubs across Gloucestershire for the development of cricket. In an attempt to celebrate this the GCB will be bringing these stories to you in its monthly 'Clubwatch' section.

Click here if you have a story that you would like the GCB to celebrate

This month its the turn of Frenchay Cricket Club - one of the GCB's Focus Clubs.

The club was formed in 1846 with one team on Frenchay Common but has now becoming a thriving centre of the community with over 11 teams in their Junior Section ranging from Under 7's to Under 17's.

In 2010 they turned their attention to Girls Cricket and with the help of the GCB's Lisa Pagett (Cricket Development Officer - Women & Girl's) set up their first Girls Cricket section. Starting off with one Under 13's team in the BYCL League they supported this through grants from the GCB and support from local councillors. Additional projects were run in local schools to attract new junior members including a Chance to Shine project in local primary schools that focused on girls cricket. As a result of all this hard work last season the club boasted a Girls section with over 50 playing members ranging 4 to 15 years old and in the 2012 season the complete pathway will be in place with the development of the Frenchay CC Ladies Cricket Team.

As their playing membership continued to increase in all areas the club felt the need to also improve their training facilities. Therefore the club set about raising money for new outdoor practice nets to replace the old 'worn out' ones their players were currently using. As a GCB Focus Club and a Clubmark Accredited club they were able to access a £15,000 ECB grant to support this as well as an ECB interest free loan. They added to this funding gained from the South Gloucestershire Council's 'Community Grant Scheme' and over £5000 of their own fundraising through events such as book sales and sponsored bike rides.

Sally Donaldson from the club stated that, "We are extremely grateful to Steve Silk (GCB's Cricket Development Manager), the ECB and the South Gloucestershire Councillors for their support in this venture"

Steve Silk, GCB CDM, said, "Frenchay Cricket Club are a shining example of a proactive, passionate club who do some exceptional work to develop cricket in their community. Their work around girl's cricket has created a whole host of new opportunities for girls in their area to take part in sport and is a great example to others. We are delighted that we have been able to support them in their quest for better training facilities and look forward to hearing of their future success stories."

If your club has a story that you would like celebrated in GCB Clubwatch then please contact Lee Ward (GCB Communications Officer) on 07963 606247 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it