Cricket Board to take on the running of Junior club leagues and competitions from 2026
Following confirmation that the current Wiltshire Youth Cricket League committee will stand down from their roles at the end of the 2025 season, Wiltshire Cricket Limited has confirmed that it will assume responsibility for running Youth Club Cricket in the county from 2026.
On Thursday 9th January 2025, Wiltshire Cricket Limited held an Informaiton evening for Cricket clubs during which information on this change was communicated to clubs, together with an outline of what this will mean for youth cricket going forwards.
If any clubs or junior club coaches would like a copy of the slide deck from this informaiton evening, please contact Pete Sykes:
Headline Information
- The WYCL committee is standing down at end of 2025 season – Wiltshire Cricket Limited would like to say a big thank you to Paul Rowson, Chris Sykes, Andy Short and previously Pete Knight who have all served on the Wiltshire Youth Cricket League committee for approximately 25 years. During that time they have overseen enormous growth in participation levels and so a huge debt of gratitude is owed to the WYCL committee for the wonderful service they have given to recreational cricket during that time. A big thank you too, to Paul, Chris and Andy for agreeing to continue the management of the league in 2025, whilst we manage the transition to …
- Wiltshire Cricket Limited will assume responsibility for running Youth Club Cricket in the county from 2026 - As explained during the information evening, rather than simply inheriting and running with the League as it currently exists, the Cricket Board sees this moment as an opportunity to:
- Re-define the purpose and ethos of junior club cricket
- Align all junior cricket competitions under one identity
- Create resource to efficiently and effectively manage junior club cricket
- Involve clubs in the development of what junior club cricket will look like from 2026
To do the four things above properly, Wiltshire Cricket believes it will take us 2025 to fully consult with the club game in Wiltshire and to then build what junior cricket will look like from 2026.
Timescales
Immediate Next Steps:
As the above image shows, Wiltshire Cricket's initial work will involve consulting our clubs around the future of youth club cricket. This will take a couple of forms:
- Junior Cricket Survey: This will be released in February 2025. We currently already have a couple of ongoing surveys with clubs (1. Club Development survey, 2. Playing Survey) to support our ongoing strategy development, therefore so that we do not confuse things we will be releasing our junior cricket survey once those other surveys have closed
- Focus Group: In addition to running the survey, we would also like to form a smaller focus group consisting of willing representatives from cricket clubs who would be interested in reviewing some of the survey findings and in providing more qualitative input as we look to develop some of the guiding principles and ethos of what junior club cricket will look like from 2026.
How we will approach this project?
Wiltshire Cricket strongly believes that we can create a junior club cricket structure that is for everyone; recognising the different outcomes that both clubs and players will be striving for from their involvement in junior club cricket. In doing this, our approach will be very much aligned to the new Vision, Mission and company values that we have developed as part of our emerging strategy development. We will be looking for constructive input from club volunteers that aligns to that vision, mission and to our values:
