{"id":735558,"date":"2026-08-12T11:36:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T11:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/735558\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T11:36:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T11:36:09","slug":"tradition-of-womens-cricket-week-continues-and-is-still-celebrated-100-years-on-cricket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/735558\/","title":{"rendered":"Tradition of Women\u2019s Cricket Week continues \u2013 and is still celebrated 100 years on | Cricket"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many places have claimed to be the home of women\u2019s cricket over the years. Taunton did so in 2006 when the England and Wales Cricket<\/a> Board named it as the new \u201cpermanent\u201d base of the England Women\u2019s team \u2013 a deal that proved anything but permanent. Lord\u2019s recently attempted to claim the moniker, after hosting one women\u2019s Test in 142 years.<\/p>\n

The real home of women\u2019s cricket, however, is a small village in Herefordshire, on the western side of the Malvern Hills: Colwall.<\/p>\n

In August 1926, a group of women\u2019s hockey players travelled to Colwall for a cricketing holiday. They stayed at the Park Hotel, which was owned by one of their number \u2013 Mollie Scott-Bowden \u2013 and enjoyed three days of enthusiastic cricket. Before packing up to go home, they came together for a final time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe sat in the Park Hotel at Colwall,\u201d one of these women, Marjorie Pollard, later wrote, \u201cand discussed how cricket could become real for us \u2013 no longer to be an illusive thing, that one played half afraid of ridicule. We pondered, mused, talked.\u201d<\/p>\n

A month after returning home, they gathered in London and officially agreed to set up the Women\u2019s Cricket Association. The WCA eventually ran English women\u2019s cricket until 1998, organising the first public women\u2019s match (in 1929), the first female internationals (1934-35), and the first Cricket World Cup (1973). Meanwhile, the tradition of Cricket Week has continued to this day: every summer a group of women return to Colwall, set up camp around the edge of Colwall Cricket Club\u2019s second pitch, and spend five days playing cricket in the place where it all began.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve known all this for years \u2013 and wrote about it in my history of women\u2019s cricket, The Women in Whites<\/a> \u2013 but have somehow never quite got around to visiting Colwall. Last weekend proved the perfect opportunity: Colwall Cricket Club celebrated the centenary of women\u2019s cricket by throwing a 1920s-themed party, complete with swing music, vintage cars, and a women\u2019s softball competition with some of the players bravely sweating it out in straw hats, long white dresses and white stockings. The club also have a new heritage display in the clubhouse that celebrates their special place as the birthplace of women\u2019s organised cricket \u2013 and, along with the England legend and Cricket Week veteran Enid Bakewell, I was invited along to cut the ribbon.<\/p>\n

Raf Nicholson holds the ribbon as Enid Bakewell (left) cuts it to open the new heritage display in the Colwall Cricket Club clubhouse. Photograph: Courtesy of Raf Nicholson<\/p>\n

I stay at the Park Hotel, and as I walk down the hill to the cricket club, it\u2019s exciting to think I am literally following in the footsteps of the WCA founders. I can almost sense the ghost of Pollard trailing behind me, ticking me off for some minor indiscretion such as wearing shorts (she was known to be a stickler for correct dress, ie skirts), or enjoying a cocktail before it hits 5pm (the Park Hotel has a delicious \u201cColwall 1926\u201d special involving gin, prosecco, Yuzu soda and mint). When I arrive I spot Enid dancing the Charleston, at the ripe old age of 85.<\/p>\n

Five years ago Colwall started a women\u2019s team; women and girls now make up 37% of the club\u2019s membership. But, like many clubs around the country, their clubhouse has until now been full of photographs of men in whites. Now, those men will be joined by the first WCA chair, Mrs Frances Heron-Maxwell, pictured in 1927 wearing a bow tie; as well as England\u2019s first wicketkeeper, Betty Snowball, in her heyday in 1933. Snowball loved Cricket Week so much that she moved to Colwall, and died here in 1988.<\/p>\n

Gemma Nurser, Colwall CC\u2019s communications lead, says: \u201cThe clubhouse is quite male-dominated, so we\u2019ve been really desperate to show that female presence, and also recognise the history that is associated with Colwall: 1926 is where it all began with the Women\u2019s Cricket Association being formed. We just wanted something in the clubhouse to recognise that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Holding the ribbon for Enid to cut, I\u2019m confident that Cricket Week is worth celebrating. For one thing, people come from far and wide to be here \u2013 and they keep coming back. This year\u2019s players included Ingrid van der Elst from the Netherlands, who played in the 1982 World Cup, and two players, Coral Handley and Veronica Savage, who have been attending Cricket Week for 50 years. For another, it has been going so long that no one quite remembers when some of its traditions began. One of those, Fancy Dress Friday, is an iconic end-of-week attempt to play cricket in full costume. Last year \u201cParty like it\u2019s \u201999\u201d involved four players dressed as the Spice Girls complete with a cardboard union jack bus, attempting to run in and bowl. On a previous occasion the Eiffel Tower opened the batting; an inflatable Mr Blobby once umpired.<\/p>\n

Players look on during a match at Women\u2019s Cricket Week at Colwall in 1935. Photograph: Central Press\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Perhaps the key thing, though, is that Cricket Week remains a haven for those who feel too old, not good enough, or nervous about entering other women\u2019s cricket spaces. \u201cWhen you go to Cricket Week you\u2019re in a safe, supportive and inclusive bubble, insulated from the outside world,\u201d one attender says. Another says: \u201cOnce you\u2019ve been to Cricket Week you\u2019re part of an incredible family, and always will be, long after you stop playing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gemma says that Colwall CC love hosting the week, and that this is another reason for wanting their history represented in their clubhouse. \u201cWe are always grateful to welcome them every year and we love it. It just brings such an amazing atmosphere to the club for the week. As a burgeoning ladies section, we\u2019re trying to really embrace Women\u2019s Cricket Week and all collaborate together.\u201d<\/p>\n

This collaboration is particularly important given the uncertain future of Cricket Week. Players of all abilities have always been welcome; teams are carefully put together at the start of the week with the aim of ensuring an even spread of talent. But gone are the days when it attracted the very best in the country. Carole Cumino, who has been attending since the mid-1980s, remembers a high point of 16 teams, all captained by England players. This year there are four.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s fair to say that the quality of the cricket over the years has decreased, but when you\u2019ve got professional county teams doing their own thing elsewhere, they\u2019re not the people who are going to come to Cricket Week,\u201d Carole says. It still attracts former England players \u2013 Sarah Clarke, who played six one-day internationals for England in 2001-02 and represented Surrey for 16 years, has been the main organiser for two decades; Claire Taylor opened the batting for the Cricket Week team in a match against MCC this year.<\/p>\n

Some might, though, question whether there remains a place for Cricket Week in an era when England players are ever more removed from the grassroots of the game, and when the women\u2019s domestic set-up has embraced full professionalisation.<\/p>\n

The manifesto for the future of women\u2019s cricket at Colwall Cricket Club. Photograph: Courtesy of Raf Nicholson<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere do people who just love their cricket go? Where do they keep going once they get into their slightly more advanced years?\u201d Carole says. \u201cI think that there is a niche for Cricket Week, but it feels to me it\u2019s emerging more as a festival of cricket and an opportunity for friends to meet up, for new people to come along and build those friendships and relationships going forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re at a sort of watershed now. But it feels like talking to people, there is enough will to want to keep it going, because they really value it.\u201d<\/p>\n

As I leave behind the beauty of the rolling Malvern Hills and return to London, I can\u2019t help feeling grateful to the WCA founders for everything they started a century ago; and hopeful that this magical festival of women\u2019s cricket will continue, even as the women\u2019s cricket landscape shifts around it.<\/p>\n

This is an extract from the Guardian\u2019s weekly cricket email, The Spin. To subscribe, just visit this page and follow the instructions<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Many places have claimed to be the home of women\u2019s cricket over the years. Taunton did so in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":735559,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-735558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=735558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/735559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=735558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=735558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=735558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}