2016 has been another great year for the Ribble Valley District with:

- 17 Ribble Valley cricketers playing for Lancashire representative teams

- The Ribble Valley ladies team – the Vipers – winning the inaugural Lancashire 6-a-side Trophy

- Both the Under 13 and Under 15 sides becoming the Lancashire Cricket Partnership Champions in their age groups,

The Ribble Valley District Cricket Development Group (CDG) held their second Awards Evening at Clitheroe Cricket Club on 30th October. Young cricketers and their families came together to celebrate the season’s successes with batting, bowling, fielding and performance awards presented across three age groups (Under 11, Under 13 and Under 15), to Vipers’ players and to primary school winners.

The age group Players of the Year were:

- Harry Rickard at Under 11 (Read CC)

- Daniel Wilson at Under 13 (Longridge CC)

- Sam Mulligan at Under 15 (Clitheroe CC)

There were joint winners of the Vipers Players’ Player of the Year with Bex Sinton and Natalie Kaye of Longridge sharing the votes.

With Langho St. Leonards, Mellor School and Salesbury School all close contenders, Pendle School were the winners of the Malcolm Blackburn Trophy and also of the Ribble Valley Cricket Primary School of the Year Award for performances in the three local Kwik Cricket competitions.

Introducing cricket to primary school pupils is vital to the future of the game and much work is being done by the CDG to provide cricketing experiences for these boys and girls. Over 200 pupils across 9 Ribble Valley primary schools have had “taster sessions” in 2016 and 11 schools entered the Malcolm Blackburn Trophy.

All seven league clubs in the CDG have junior sections providing development for young cricketers on their own, well maintained grounds. These grounds provide the venues for the juniors to play competitive matches against teams in their own age groups as a key part of their pathway into senior cricket.

Chairman of the CDG, Derrick Smith said: “The Borough Council has been very supportive of the CDG’s efforts so we were very sad not to be able to welcome the Lady Mayor, Councillor Joyce Holgate MBE, to present our awards after she unfortunately fell and broke her leg three days before the event.

Nevertheless it was a really enjoyable evening with lots of young cricketers reminiscing about last season’s achievements and looking forward to successes still to come. All-in-all a great way for us to say well done - but keep going!”