COLTS CRICKET AT LONDON COLNEY
Colts at London Colney CC play under the name Shenley Colts (LC). The Colts
section is managed by Mark Stear. Shenley Colts LC have their own web site:
A brief history of the London Colney colts
by: Ian Prior
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.
More recent achievements by Shenley Colts are found on their web site