The welcome sight of Junior cricketers playing internal and friendly matches at Beckenham is breathing excitement back into Beckenham Cricket Club after lockdown.

The Softballers are back at Coaching on Sunday mornings from 9.00am to 10.30am.

Who can forget the excitement of a softball sweetly striking a plastic bat and seeing the players running like crazy between the wickets?! Or watching a young bowler celebrate taking a wicket, or a team-mate taking a great catch to win the game?

Parents and softball players have all this to look forward to! Mini 8 matches will start in August and give players a chance to put their skills to use in matches and supporters to cheer them on.

The players from the U11s, U13s, U15s and Girls Section have so far taken part in more than 670 hours of nets over the past six weeks, with coaches Matt and Dan Grice, Emyr Roberts, Phil Venier, Neil Coulson and Luke White.

The coaches have been complemented by a small army of experienced parents giving time, advice and support as players knocked the dust off their bowling and batting techniques or transitioned to hardball.

Through these net sessions several U11 girls started their transition to playing hardball and all U13 Girl players now train and play in mixed nets and matches. In addition, 14+ Girls’ nets ran for six weeks alongside the Ladies training.

Hardball Coaching is in full swing from 10.45am to 12.15pm every Sunday until the end of August under the watchful eye of Matt Grice and his team of dedicated coaches.

Thanks to Club Chairman Owen Gregory, whilst access to the grass wickets is restricted as the Club invests heavily in developing new grass wickets, the Junior section now has access to two roll out wickets to enable the U11s and U13s to play matches simultaneously at Foxgrove Road.

Every Tuesday at 4.30pm, two matches run for the U11s and (for the first time) the Girls section.

On Thursdays, U11s and U13s teams play up to four matches; two at 1.00pm and two at 4.30pm. These fixtures are a mixture of internal matches and friendlies against local rivals.

The U15s and U17s teams are back too. Many of the players have been selected to play up into Senior XIs and several have started to make their mark home and away.

If you have any questions about Junior Cricket or want to get more involved yourself, please do get in touch via Pitchero, at matches, or at Training, with the respective Age Group Leads who are here to help make each player's experience of Junior cricket as good as it can be.

Andrew Bibby for the U9s, Amanda Combes for the U11s, Mat Flint for the U13s, Suzy Masson for the U12s Girls, Alan Peters for the U13 and U15 Girls, Ken Hoad for the U15s and Emyr Roberts for the U17s (and Chair of Junior Cricket)