The colts section began during the mid 1970’s, with a team containing boys of various ages and abilities. It was run by Howard Smith (our ex-chairman) and Albert Litherland.
Several senior players playing today joined the club to play in these colts games (all friendlies).
However by the start of the 1980’s the colts section had folded, and it was not until 1984 that colts cricket resurfaced at the Club. I decided to organise practice evenings at White Horse Lane during the week, and after a while we had several boys turning up. About three fixtures were arranged for the end of the summer, and it must be said that the standard was rather poor.
By the next year a full fixture list had been arranged, with several friendly games being played.
In 1986 we entered the County competition, which was played in a knockout format in those days, and in 1988 managed to reach the final, where we lost to Knebworth.
An important moment in the history of colts cricket at London Colney was when I attended the Coaching Award course at the invitation of Bill Lake in 1989. After passing, it motivated me to set up winter coaching sessions and a yearly indoor Kwik Cricket course for 10/11 year olds in the early 1990’s. The boys and girls were mainly from the local Primary school in London Colney i.e Bowmansgreen.
Since then a Winter coaching programme has been arranged throughout the 1990’s, using Francis Bacon School, Greenwood Park Hall, Hatfield and Redbourn Cricket Schools, Marlbrough School and The FE Cleary Hall in Potters Bar.
Since the early 1990’s we have entered teams in the County competitions at U13 and U15 level, playing in the Herts SW Division. We also run an U17’s team when needed.
To start with we usually suffered heavy defeats, but by 1994/5 we were a force to be reckoned with, and finished second at both levels on three occasions, qualifying for the last eight in the County competition.
By 1993 I had passed the Senior Coaching Award to become a Senior coach, and in 1996 Dave Smith took the Coaching award, passed and took over the running of the U13’s.
During the 90’s three players managed to get into the U16’s County side to play in the Texaco Competition – Leigh Lerwill, Barry Yates and Dinesh Yogendra. Andrew Cole got into the U19 County side during 2000.