A History

2011 has seen forty seasons completed for our league cricket since the first in 1972.

The inaugural meeting of fourteen clubs invited as interested in a league formation took place on 14th May 1970. Following further meetings the league was under way with an initial fourteen clubs with the opening matches on 20th May 1972.

In 1975 two more clubs joined and when in 1979 a further two the complement became eighteen these playing at first and second elevens. 1980 saw the first season of third eleven sides competing with fourteen clubs playing an average of five matches that first season for them.

In 1990 initial discussions took place between our league and the Lee 75 League and Three Counties League. This led eventually to an amalgamation of the three leagues under the TVCL banner. There were fifty one clubs involved at the time so nine more were elected to ensure a sixty club complement. The structure was adopted at a meeting on 30th April 1992 with the enlarged league under way in the 1993 season. Established were divisions of ten sides at the three playing levels with home and away matches each season and for the first time promotion and relegation.

The year 2000 saw the advent of premier league cricket and the need for a further restructure as many of our club first eleven sides only were elected to the Home Counties Premier League. This gave us the opportunity to structure for first and second elevens competing together in the several divisions whilst thirds and some lower sides had their own divisions.

It was in 2002 when we then saw for the first time a full structure embracing all member club sides within the overall divisional competition. The next step came in 2008 when the league was enlarged as eight new clubs bringing twenty sides were elected.
So today in 2012 we see seventeen divisions nearly all with ten sides so up to eighty five matches are played on eighteen consecutive Saturdays in the season.

The league has a management committee of twelve and seven sub committees each with a chairman and reporting to the main management. We also have four results secretaries.

These are the officials since commencement :-

Chairman -

Vice Chairman -

Thames Valley Cricket League

Secretary -

Fixtures Secretary–

Treasurer

The forty years of our league were duly celebrated by a special cricket match at founder club Amersham on 24th June 2011 and the presentation dinner on 21st October 2011.
We also published a full history of the league this being widely distributed.

2011 saw Neil Doody step down as chairman of the league after thirty years in office.

Elected as chairman was Jeremy Davis and Neil was elected as first president of the Thames Valley Cricket League.