Canterbury Cricket Club

The Canterbury Cricket Clubimage: Canterbury Cricket Club|Canterbury Cricket Clubwas formerly known as Beverley Cricket Club. This club is known to be one of the oldest cricket clubs in the country. The club had its meetings for practice and used to play their home matches in St. Stephen’s Field which is near Canterbury. Founded in 1835, the honorable secretary of the club was Mr. John G. A. Baker. At the weekly meetings, the club members became popular players in the cricket history.

The club runs around five teams that play in the Kent League, the East Kent League and the Kent Feeder League East. On Sundays second XI remains the safe place for those who wish to escape from the demands of league cricket. There is also a junior side with Club Mark accreditation with professional cricket coaching and match played for age group players.

Some of the sponsors of this cricket club are Canterbury Cricket & Hockey Center, Brasserie Gerard, City Awards, Benchmarx Kitchen and many more. Blatch and Green are the sponsors of the Canterbury Sixes, with other fixture card sponsors being D&B services and Bates (Kent) Ltd. The Canterbury Cricket Club is also keen to recruit new members.

In 1977, the fortune of this club changed drastically with the hockey club striving to play at the new ground replacing the Kingsmead field which it leased from the local council. Bill Laslett and his brother, Dick Laslett saw the potential of the Polo Farm which is situated on the Canterbury Sandwich road. So they bought this land and re-sold it to the Hockey club. In order to reuse this land, they made a joint venture which was incorporating the clubs, the Beverley Cricket Club and the Canterbury Hockey Club. From then onwards, both the games are being played at the ground. Cricket was first played in 1982, with Doug Toze, the oldest playing member of the club opened the innings for the Saturday ‘A’ XI against Hawkinge.