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[Cricket] Depressing list - best schools for cricket



G

Gwylan

Well-known member
Jul 5, 2003
31,336
Uffern
The Cricketer is publishing a special edition with a feature on the 100 best schools for cricket in England (including six in Sussex).

I've had a look and I'm pretty sure that every school on it is an independent. The hidden message is that most future England cricketers are going to come from those schools - it's really depressing that we're limiting our selection to the 7% of pupils who are educated privately, but that seems to be the way that we're going.

Tough luck for any future Gooch, Willis, Botham, Gough or Gatting out there.
 




Badger

Badger

NOT the Honey Badger
NSC Patron
May 8, 2007
12,778
Toronto
I don't think that's entirely true. We should be encouraging kids to join local cricket clubs.

Having said that, I didn't have the best experience at my cricket club. For most of the league matches during May and June we'd only have state school kids because all the private school kids had their own matches. As soon as the private school kids were available, our manager (who I think was privately educated) would put them in the team at the expense of players who'd played the whole season. A terrible lesson to teach the rest of us, especially as we were a good team without the private kids. It eventually reached a point (U15 I think) where one of the dads formed a second team for our festival week so we'd all get a game. I think the second team did better than first team too. Our manager quit and joined another cricket club and things changed after that.
 






vegster

vegster

Sanity Clause
May 5, 2008
27,892
Gwylan said:
The Cricketer is publishing a special edition with a feature on the 100 best schools for cricket in England (including six in Sussex).

I've had a look and I'm pretty sure that every school on it is an independent. The hidden message is that most future England cricketers are going to come from those schools - it's really depressing that we're limiting our selection to the 7% of pupils who are educated privately, but that seems to be the way that we're going.

Tough luck for any future Gooch, Willis, Botham, Gough or Gatting out there.
Click to expand...

I think that things are pretty much the same as when I was at West Tarring in the 70's. Virtually no pads, gloves were the linen ones with little rubber spikes on the backs of the fingers and thumbs. The balls were plastic moulded ones and we had those sprung wickets which were three stumps which would lean open like a lady's fan as we never had bails to hold them together. Add to this we " batted " on a 10 yd strip of concrete that had been painted with a layer of bitumen paint/tar.... sometimes we put a mat along it but not often,, oh, and EVERYONE apart from a couple of Indian pupils wanted to be Dennis Lillee so due to the vagaries of the bounce and the hostility of the bowler you ended up having cracked shins and ankles or dodging throat balls. Marvellous fun, but only if you were a bowler.
 




dejavuatbtn

dejavuatbtn

Well-known member
Aug 4, 2010
7,190
Henfield
Yes, it’s a great shame that cricket is low down on school sports priority list. 60 years ago we played at junior school (Goldstone) and most of the secondary schools not only had teams, but their own pitches. With the loss of playing fields, cuts in budgets and fewer teachers looking to promote the game in our state schools, it’s disappointing that more kids don’t even get a taste of it. It’s a great participative sport/pastime that the whole family could be involved in and enjoy during a lifetime.
 


DavidinSouthampton

DavidinSouthampton

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Jan 3, 2012
16,580
Money Talks. Maybe this would be a way of getting Cricket fans to support the abolition of independent schools.:eek::ohmy:
 






Pevenseagull

Pevenseagull

Anti-greed coalition
Jul 20, 2003
19,612
I wasn't allowed to bowl at school because I was too fast...but I had to play rugby against people who were allowed to smash into me. 1980s. Willingdon.
 


Pevenseagull

Pevenseagull

Anti-greed coalition
Jul 20, 2003
19,612
...there were a lot of byes..... But very few wides

Stupid fast for a comprehensive.
 


bhafc99

bhafc99

Well-known member
Oct 14, 2003
7,085
Dubai
Well I went to two of those schools for the best part of a decade, and I was shit at cricket, so I therefore declare this list worthless.


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LANGDON SEAGULL

LANGDON SEAGULL

Well-known member
Dec 9, 2004
3,422
Langdon Hills
Gwylan said:
The Cricketer is publishing a special edition with a feature on the 100 best schools for cricket in England (including six in Sussex).

I've had a look and I'm pretty sure that every school on it is an independent. The hidden message is that most future England cricketers are going to come from those schools - it's really depressing that we're limiting our selection to the 7% of pupils who are educated privately, but that seems to be the way that we're going.

Tough luck for any future Gooch, Willis, Botham, Gough or Gatting out there.
Click to expand...

Shenfield High is not independent- I used to live near it


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 


Kalimantan Gull

Kalimantan Gull

Well-known member
Aug 13, 2003
12,923
Central Borneo / the Lizard
Gwylan said:
The Cricketer is publishing a special edition with a feature on the 100 best schools for cricket in England (including six in Sussex).

I've had a look and I'm pretty sure that every school on it is an independent. The hidden message is that most future England cricketers are going to come from those schools - it's really depressing that we're limiting our selection to the 7% of pupils who are educated privately, but that seems to be the way that we're going.

Tough luck for any future Gooch, Willis, Botham, Gough or Gatting out there.
Click to expand...

Private schools are an excellent place to nurture young cricket talent, no doubt. Other schools are much better for football or athletics.

But school isn't the only place you learn and play cricket, most cricketers will come through clubs
 


Arkwright

Arkwright

Arkwright
Oct 26, 2010
2,790
Caterham, Surrey
Interesting list, our local public school Caterham isn't on the list and yet has former Surrey player Jonathan Batty coaching and before that Surrey coach Chris Bullen coupled with amazing facilities should be turning out good young players.
Local clubs are ECB accredited and normally part of Chance To Shine and encouraged to coach in all local schools. I know from various local clubs it is hard encouraging the juniors to play adult cricket and most clubs are dwindling in numbers and several clubs are either merging or folding.
It's a great shame that grassroots cricket is struggling, you could argue that it's not only cricket.
 




DJ NOBO

DJ NOBO

Well-known member
Jul 18, 2004
6,332
Wiltshire
Gwylan said:
The Cricketer is publishing a special edition with a feature on the 100 best schools for cricket in England (including six in Sussex).

I've had a look and I'm pretty sure that every school on it is an independent. The hidden message is that most future England cricketers are going to come from those schools - it's really depressing that we're limiting our selection to the 7% of pupils who are educated privately, but that seems to be the way that we're going.

Tough luck for any future Gooch, Willis, Botham, Gough or Gatting out there.
Click to expand...

We can all aspire to be as good at cricket as Joe Gatting
 


R

redoubtable seagull

Well-known member
Oct 27, 2004
2,530
Dale Jasper said:
We can all aspire to be as good at cricket as Joe Gatting
Click to expand...

Who, according to Wiki, was educated at independent school, Brighton College.

He obviously didn’t hit dizzying heights of success but a 6 year career as a first class cricketer is pretty good. More successful than my 30 plus years of medium paced trundling in league cricket anyway!
 


R

redoubtable seagull

Well-known member
Oct 27, 2004
2,530
Gwylan said:
The Cricketer is publishing a special edition with a feature on the 100 best schools for cricket in England (including six in Sussex).

I've had a look and I'm pretty sure that every school on it is an independent. The hidden message is that most future England cricketers are going to come from those schools - it's really depressing that we're limiting our selection to the 7% of pupils who are educated privately, but that seems to be the way that we're going.

Tough luck for any future Gooch, Willis, Botham, Gough or Gatting out there.
Click to expand...

I wonder if a criterion for inclusion in the Guide / on the list might involve payment. Coupled with meeting certain conditions, one of which would obviously be to be good at cricket.
 


Worried Man Blues

Worried Man Blues

Well-known member
Feb 28, 2009
6,615
Swansea
The general attitude is wrong, we played anywhere with a tennis ball and piece of wood. Then progressed to real cricket
 




Guinness Boy

Guinness Boy

Tofu eating wokerati
Helpful Moderator
NSC Patron
Jul 23, 2003
34,119
Up and Coming Sunny Portslade
Gwylan said:
The Cricketer is publishing a special edition with a feature on the 100 best schools for cricket in England (including six in Sussex).

I've had a look and I'm pretty sure that every school on it is an independent. The hidden message is that most future England cricketers are going to come from those schools - it's really depressing that we're limiting our selection to the 7% of pupils who are educated privately, but that seems to be the way that we're going.

Tough luck for any future Gooch, Willis, Botham, Gough or Gatting out there.
Click to expand...

Badger said:
I don't think that's entirely true. We should be encouraging kids to join local cricket clubs.

Having said that, I didn't have the best experience at my cricket club. For most of the league matches during May and June we'd only have state school kids because all the private school kids had their own matches. As soon as the private school kids were available, our manager (who I think was privately educated) would put them in the team at the expense of players who'd played the whole season. A terrible lesson to teach the rest of us, especially as we were a good team without the private kids. It eventually reached a point (U15 I think) where one of the dads formed a second team for our festival week so we'd all get a game. I think the second team did better than first team too. Our manager quit and joined another cricket club and things changed after that.
Click to expand...

Hasn't it always been this way? I went to a local state comprehensive and we didn't play at all so I joined a local club. My mum was impressed by a posh accent playing at Wish Park when looking for a club and I joined a team full of public school boys, mainly Hurst Colllege.

In those days I bowled more than batted, dibbly dobbly seam up wobblers that were just too tricky for tail end sloggers. Normally the bowling trophy was given to the boy with the best bowling average. That was me in my third season when I took a hat trick in one game and three in an over in another. The fast bowler from Hurst got the trophy that season. I didn't get picked for any of the festivals.

I gave up after that and only got back in to playing after meeting [MENTION=29192]Brighton Lines[/MENTION] at away games. I spent all my 20s playing village cricket with working class blokes from Woodingdean, Queens Park and Burgess Hill, meeting [MENTION=1663]Scoffers[/MENTION] and [MENTION=12422]Taybha[/MENTION] among others. Truly the greatest days of my life. However, I still wish I'd never bothered with colts' cricket.
 


E

essbee1

Well-known member
Jun 25, 2014
4,119
Gwylan said:
The Cricketer is publishing a special edition with a feature on the 100 best schools for cricket in England (including six in Sussex).

I've had a look and I'm pretty sure that every school on it is an independent. The hidden message is that most future England cricketers are going to come from those schools - it's really depressing that we're limiting our selection to the 7% of pupils who are educated privately, but that seems to be the way that we're going.

Tough luck for any future Gooch, Willis, Botham, Gough or Gatting out there.
Click to expand...

But if the Govt. cuts mean that local councils have been selling off playing fields to build on - then this is inevitable isn't it?
 


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