Canterbury Cricket Week
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Canterbury Cricket Week is the oldest cricket festival week in
England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
and involves a series of consecutive Kent home matches, traditionally held in the first week in August. It was founded in 1842, although a similar festival week was first held in 1839 by the Beverley Cricket Club, the predecessor of
Kent County Cricket Club Kent County Cricket Club is one of the eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Kent. A club representing the county was first founded in 1842 but Ke ...
.Charles Taylor and Canterbury Cricket Week
Kent Cricket Heritage Trust, 2018-08-27. Retrieved 2018-12-13.
Since 1847 it has taken place at the
St Lawrence Ground The St Lawrence Ground is a cricket ground in Canterbury, Kent. It is the home ground of Kent County Cricket Club and since 2013 has been known as The Spitfire Ground, St Lawrence, due to commercial sponsorship. It is one of the oldest grounds ...
,
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, before that it was held at the
Beverley Ground The Beverley Ground was a cricket ground in Canterbury in Kent. It was in use in the mid-19th century, with recorded matches taking place between 1839 and 1846. It was the home ground of Beverley Cricket Club and was where the first Kent County ...
in the same city. In addition to hosting cricket matches, it also includes several other events and ceremonies. As of 2018, there have been 167 Canterbury Cricket Weeks held. The week continued through the Second World War with cricket being held on the ground each season.Cricket – Canterbury Week, ''
The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'', 1944-08-04, p.6.
The politician and journalist
Bill Deedes William Francis Deedes, Baron Deedes, (1 June 1913 – 17 August 2007) was a British Conservative Party (UK), Conservative politician, army officer and journalist. He was the first person in Britain to have been both a member of the Cabinet and ...
wrote in 2000: "while the Second World War was on, I consoled myself by thinking that Canterbury Cricket Week, founded in 1842 with its tents and famous lime tree, unchanging in a changing world, was the sort of thing I was in business to preserve."
Simon Heffer Simon James Heffer (born 18 July 1960) is an English historian, journalist, author and political commentator. He has published several biographies and a series of books on the social history of Great Britain from the mid-nineteenth century unti ...
(2015-12-02
Old Stagers knew how to take cricket to the people
''
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'' page 13. Retrieved 2016-01-27.


Traditions

Traditionally Canterbury Cricket Week included a Ladies Day, with prizes being awarded for the best hat on the day,Canterbury hosts festival week
ECB, 2008-07-28. Retrieved 2012-02-08. Archived from the original 2016-11-14.
Fleming MV (1998
Canterbury and Headingley
CricInfo ESPN cricinfo (formerly known as Cricinfo or CricInfo) is a sports news website exclusively for the game of cricket. The site features news, articles, live coverage of cricket matches (including liveblogs and scorecards), and ''StatsGuru'', a d ...
, 1998-08-08. Retrieved 2017-04-25.
Collins P (2011
Fascinating! It's Ladies' Day
in ''
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack ''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', or simply ''Wisden'', colloquially the Bible of Cricket, is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom. The description "bible of cricket" was first used in the 1930s by Alec Waugh in a ...
'', 2011. Retrieved 2017-11-12.
though in recent years this has been discontinued in line with changing social attitudes and the need to keep cricket relevant to a modern audience. The Kent Supporters Club lays a wreath each year, commemorating those who played for the county and died during the
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and
Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
s.Canterbury ready for Kent cricket showpiece
''
Kent Online KM Media Group is a multimedia company in the county of Kent, England which originated as the publisher of the Kent Messenger. The Group now produces local newspapers, radio stations and websites throughout the county. Iliffe Media acquired KM ...
'', 2004-08-02. Retrieved 2018-03-28.
The
Old Stagers The Old Stagers (OS) is an amateur theatre group, founded in 1842 by Hon. Frederick Ponsonby (later Earl of Bessborough) to perform during Kent's annual Canterbury Cricket Week. Originally the Canterbury Old Stagers, it took its current name in 1 ...
amateur theatre group has close links with Canterbury Cricket Week, originally being formed to perform at the festival.


Impact

Canterbury Cricket Week usually has Kent's highest attendance at the St. Lawrence Ground. It was once considered a major commercial and cricketing highlight of the year. There were concerns that it could be eclipsed by the growth in popularity of
Twenty20 Twenty20 (T20) is a shortened game format of cricket. At the professional level, it was introduced by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) in 2003 for the inter-county competition. In a Twenty20 game, the two teams have a single innin ...
but is still considered unique in cricket and is not expected to change.


2012

In 2012, the 161st Canterbury Cricket Week was scheduled to clash with the second week of the
2012 Summer Olympics The 2012 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012) was an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, the ...
in
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leading to fears of a reduced attendance at the Cricket Week. However, Kent Chief Executive Jamie Clifford stated that he believed that it would bring in larger crowds, mainly from people who didn't have tickets to the Olympics.


See also

*
Tunbridge Wells Cricket Week Tunbridge Wells Cricket Week is a festival of cricket during which Kent County Cricket Club play their home matches at Tunbridge Wells Cricket Club's Nevill Ground in Royal Tunbridge Wells. Games held during it are considered some of Kent's most ...


References


Further reading

* ''Canterbury Cricket Week - An Authentic Narrative of the Origin and Career of the Institution. Vol I. 1839-1851'' (Canterbury: William Davy, 1865) * Small, E.M., ''The Canterbury Cricket Week - Its Origin, Career and Jubilee 1842-91'' (Canterbury, 1891) * Hough, G. ''Canterbury Week Centenary 1842-1948'' (Canterbury: Jennings, 1948) * Warner, H.W., ''The Story of Canterbury Cricket Week'' (Canterbury: J.A. Jennings, 1960) * Richard Ritchie, ''The Old Stagers: Canterbury, Cricket and Theatricals: An Official History'', OS Publishing, 2015, . {{Kent CCC English domestic cricket competitions Sport in Canterbury Cricket culture Cricket in Kent