Malmesbury CC Wiltshire Div 1 Champions

http://www.wccl.org.uk/2014/division1

In a season where the leadership of the WCCL Div.1 has gone back and forth between MCC and close rivals Wootton Bassett our consistently, relentless run scoring (3023 @ 50+ for each wicket!) has seen our 1stXI win their first League title since our glory days in the early 80s.

So what does this mean for the Club. As a result the Club's 1st XI is promoted into the fourth tier of the West of England Premier League and our 2nd XI, who had the 'anti' season, finishing bottom of their division are dragged with them. A higher standard of competition and better quality pitches to play on are likely, especially for our 2nds. If you are an adult player reading this then I don't need to tell you what this means but as a parent of one of our current youth players it may not be so obvious. So let me take this back 5-10 years to explain the relevance. At that time, of the current Championship squad, at least 12 of the lads were playing for MCC in our age group games, just like your sons & daughters are doing now. So although it took us 4 months and eighteen games to win this title the seeds were really sown a decade ago. 

Five years ago, faced with the harsh financial reality of heavy debt, we dispensed with the normal practice of recruiting an overseas player. We dropped down divisions as we discovered that they had been largely carrying us for several seasons.  Since then, our ethos has been to invest our time and money in our youth policy and also to maintain the high quality of our playing surfaces. So wind forward another five years and I believe we will still be relying on the product of our youth squads to push this Club to play as high a standard of cricket as possible and on the best surfaces we can afford.

Thank you to all those players, parents & friends in the past who have made this championship possible and to all those today who will make future wins happen.

Steve Jepson
Chairman