NEWS

The Old Citizens CC have played friendly social cricket
for most of the time over the years, but we have entered
a couple of knock-out competitions.

The Kemps Cup, which was later renamed The Bertie Joel Cup, and competed for by most leading cricket clubs in South East England & The Cricket World Trophy, a contest restricted to teams of former pupils of independent schools throughout England.

We were invited to compete in the Cricketer Cup in 1968, and had the invitation come a few years later we would have jumped at the chance of entering this prestigious cup, alongside all the most famous public schools.
 
However we declined at the time. The committee considered there were three main reasons for this. First, our new pavilion would not be constructed for a couple of years, and we were still using the Junior School pavilion facilities without a bar. Second, as a Sunday competition it would interfere with our traditional fixtures established over the years. Third, although the club strength was beginning to improve, we needed to become stronger so that we could compete at a higher level.
 

Kemps/Bertie Joel Cup

Easily our best performances were reserved for the Kemps Cup, which we entered for the first time in 1968 and continued to do so until 1975.  We progressed to round three in our first attempt which included dismissing the strong Hayes (Kent) club on the way.
 
Kemps matches were played in midweek which meant that they did not interfere with our normal fixture programme, the only handicap was that people had to take time off work in order to play, but at least that applied to all teams in the competition. Around 250 clubs entered the draw played in an era when league cricket was only just starting to get under way in south-east England which had been dominated by friendly matches up until then. Indeed, unlike much of the country the governing body had banned leagues previously. The London Evening Standard used to compile an unofficial league from the results of Saturday games of the top club sides in the London area for some years before leagues were officially approved by the Club Cricket Conference.

In 1969 we did very well indeed to reach the quarter finals before being beaten by a team which was not as strong as a some of clubs we had dismissed in earlier rounds, which included Honor Oak, Streatham and Purley, all strong club sides fielding at least three Saturday elevens and having top class opponents on their fixture lists. We even got a bit of reputation of a strong club in the competition, with Camberley CC, one of the semi-finalists, telling us they were expecting to find themselves playing against us for a place in the final!

Cricket World Trophy

In 1999 we entered the Cricket World Trophy. Contestants for the competition had to be teams of players who had attended English independent schools, matches were played on Sundays, with a limited overs format.  This suited us because by that year we played the vast majority of our games on Saturdays, with only a few on Sunday. All our matches were otherwise friendly ones, and the trophy would give players a chance to play in a knock-out format.

The competition did encourage a very limited number of players who usually played for other clubs to play, but the downside was that we soon found that even though games were regionalized in the first round, the competition involved travelling long distances  in time for an early afternoon start, some of which would even have meant having to travel the previous night to get to the destination on time. Players were not prepared for that sort of commitment, and we decided after 2003 that we would no longer take part.
 

Wimbledon six-a-side competition

For four years from 1966 to 1969 we played in the Wimbledon CC six-a-side competition, an event that was played by sides by invitation only.