Welcome to the 2023 Season

The 2023 season, Irby Cricket Clubs 75th anniversary season, is now firmly underway, and we welcome you all to join us this coming summer for what I will describe as a ‘new beginning for the club’ in our first season as a full member of the Liverpool & District Cricket Competition. We will welcome lots of new clubs to Mill Hill Road for the first time and there will be lots of cricket for members to participate and spectate. We have the 4 senior Saturday teams competing this season and there will be plenty of opportunities for playing members, old and new to play local cricket.

Our junior section this year will be under the stewardship of Ben Wilson who is looking to build upon the excellent work and foundations put in place by Gareth Jones, who still remains an active management committee member and player. There will be plenty of opportunities for juniors to play both age group and senior cricket for those who are old enough and want to. The club has a good tradition of producing good young players who go on to represent the senior teams and we will be looking for this to continue and be developed further.

For the first time in a number of seasons we welcome an overseas player to the club – Smit Mehta. Smit has come over from India but having recently played in Australia for South Brisbane. Smit will strengthen the clubs spin bowling options whilst hopefully chipping in with some key runs. He will also be available for some 1-2-1 coaching and private sessions with both juniors and seniors so I would encourage anyone interested to reach out to him.

2023 sponsorships are now available, and I would encourage you all to reach out to your employer or any business contacts you may have to see if they are prepared to help out a thriving local community cricket club. We can guarantee increased exposure as the new league we are in have weekly content in the various local press with lots of photos of grounds so perfect for advertising boards! Our new website will also contain all our sponsors going forward. Sponsorship starts from as little as £20 for junior ball sponsorship, please see the various flyers and reach out if you think you can help on know someone who can. Many thanks to those people and businesses who have already sponsored boards and special thanks go to our main club sponsors Crawford Financial Planning for their continual support and sponsorship.

Memberships Subscriptions are now due and there are various options to pay, including monthly if that’s easier. As an added incentive to pay early we have introduced a new membership card which will give you a circa 10% discount off the bar prices, which sadly due to increased costs from suppliers we have been left with little option than to raise our prices. You can renew online now via our website or in person in the clubhouse.

We will be marking our 75th Anniversary with a special marquee weekend over the last weekend in June. The highlight being Friday Afternoon speaker/dinner with the speaker being Geoff Miller. Tickets are selling well and there are not many left for what will be a fantastic afternoon so act soon. Tickets can be purchased on the website or in the club.

Finally, I hope everyone likes our new club website which we aim to keep relevant and provide updated information on going. There will be further developments to it in due course which will lead to live streaming and videos etc. Thanks go to members Thomas Jones (TJ) and his brother Devan for all their hard work in getting this up and running.

I very much look forward to seeing you all this season. Your support is very much appreciated and much valued.
Smithy