A beautiful day for cricket on Sun 8th Sept, in one of Cheshire's most picturesque & historic villages Styal, which is home & just a stones throw away from the industrially significant Quarry Bank Mill, where our eager Wythenshawe Juniors (including our new Wythenshawe Willows - Girls) arrived bright and early for the 2019 Styal CC 6 x Side jnr cricket festival and ready for a great day of junior cricket fun! With 3 teams entered by Wythenshawe CC, a mixed U9/11's Wasps, mixed U9/11's Wolves and Willows- girls, we were in for a full day of competitive and fun cricket. Willows, were placed in the U8's comp and gave a good account of themselves considering they'd never played in any competition before, all but one having come through our successful ECB All Stars Cricket programme. Highest score coming from Izzy McInerney with 18 runs net and Natalie Shaw taking a wicket! Well played to all the team, thanks to Andy for umpiring, Jeannie for scoring & Clare for the photos of the girls matches. Over on the other side of the ground, on the blue and red pitches, two hotly contested competitions were taking place, as our quickly and aptly named "Wasps" (there were literally millions of them flying around the ground!!) and "Wolves" teams were engaged in the U11's comp, which included teams from Liverpool and Heaton Mersey. Wasps & Wolves were mixed teams of U9's and U11's for this competition and both played excellently against some very strong opposition, one of the highlights of the day had to be when both our teams were drawn to play each other!! A real Wythenshawe Derby ensued...no love lost here, as both teams gave it their all in the quest to gain bragging rights....after a great match, Wolves just edged it and in doing so sealed their place in the Semi Final vs Liverpool Lightning. No shame though for the Wasps as they showed great team work and demonstrated just how much they had developed over this season with their cricket skills and confidence. Wasps leading scorer over the day was Sam Brooks with 12 runs net and leading wicket taker was Morgan Platt with 4 wickets total. Well done to coach Ian Hilton for umpiring & scoring at the same time and keeping all the boys focused on their cricket. Finally, our day concluded with Wolves successfully sealing a place in the Semi Final, the furthest we've got in a junior festival and all boys were fired up for the contest vs Liverpool Lightning. A brilliantly competitive and close run match was cheered on enthusiastically by family and friends, Wolves battled right to the very end, sadly just missing out on a place in the final as they had lost more wickets than Liverpool (lose 5 runs for the loss of a wicket) but they can hold their heads high for a great display of cricket....they've all come a long way since our own festival at Longley Lane back in May. Highest scorer for Wolves over the day was Ben Toland with 53 runs net and leading wicket takers (shared) were Liam McCoy & Alex Forrest with 3 wickets each. Well done to coach Craig McCoy for steering the boys to their very first semi final & thanks also to Martin for scoring all the games. Teams and players each received a medal from LBW (Learn Before Winning) Cricket Festival organisers, it was a brilliant day and testament to all the hard work put in each week by our coaches and volunteers over the whole of the season. We are pretty sure the elusive silverware will be coming to Wythenshawe CC in the not too distant future!! A great day, lovely hospitality from the hosts Styal Cricket Club and once again exemplary support from ALL our players parents and families. Much appreciated, Tracy Bailey Wythenshawe CC Jnr Secretary xx
Photo Album HERE: