RISHTON made a little bit of ‘history’ after becoming the first winners of the inaugural Lancashire Women’s Softball Cricket ‘Final of Finals’ Festival.

Now they are aiming to be role models and standard bearers to encourage more women to take up the sport.

The club was only formed a year ago but thanks to the determination of founders, Lara Slater and Georgina Bolton, the Rishton soft ball team has thrived - picking up a clutch of honours along the way.

“We only set up to have fun and raise funds,” said Slater who helped set up a team followed a charity event at Rishton Cricket Club. “We were having a few drinks after the event and decided to set up our own team.”

It was left to Slater and Bolton, who is the club captain, to set the wheels in motion.

“Many of the club’s female members expressed interest playing cricket more regularly than just the once a year,” added Slater.

“Georgina and I took it upon ourselves to start the ball rolling.

“Georgina has been one of few girls playing cricket at Rishton since a young age and regularly plays in the Thirds. I, however, had zero cricket experience, I have been working behind the bar for many years at Rishton and wanted to do more for the club.

“So together we formulated a plan to start our women’s team.”

The club went about obtaining funds, getting kit and putting players through their coaching badges.

“It was a challenging task as there was limited opportunities in the women’s game at the beginner’s level,” added Slater

“But we received grant money from the National Lottery and the Lancashire Cricket Foundation to support us in this venture. We purchased kit and equipment and Georgina was able to gain her Level 2 cricket coaching badge.

“We had a lot of support however from Lancashire Cricket Foundation, our cricket committee and our senior teams which enabled us to succeed.”

The team trained on weekly basis with players from 15 to 50 taking part.

“Making a women’s team was not always about the cricket, we have made many new friends along the way in our hometown and at other cricket clubs,” added Slater. “We have encouraged more women into sport of all ages, abilities and cultures.

“We have made some fantastic memories and it has really helped women have an identity and role in our cricket club.”

While the emphasis was on enjoyment, the team also turned out be pretty decent - culminating with being crowned county champions when they beat Shaw Cricket Club at Northern CC in Crosby. Rishton finished with a score of 273 with Shaw restricted to 212 in reply, largely thanks to the impressive bowling of player-of -the-match Emma Leathert.

It was a fitting finale for team who, the day before, had seen their own softball festival fall foul to the weather.

But Rishton qualified for finals day having won a number of festivals across the county.

The team also came runners-up in The Thunder Indoor League, where third in the inaugural Lancashire Women’s Soft Ball League and played its first 20 over match. Slater said: “We were really disappointed our festival had to be cancelled and can’t replay it this year as the pitch is being reseeded,” she said.

“But we have had a great first full season. To win the Softball final was superb.

“We are really proud of our accomplishments as this was our first year playing cricket and we never expected to do so well.”

Julie Durrant, women’s Softball coordinator from Lancashire Cricket Foundation, has been impressed with what Rishton have done for the sport.

“Lancashire Cricket Foundation are very proud of what Rishton CC have achieved in such a very short space of time to develop women’s cricket and are now one of our role models /blue print clubs who we use as an example across the county,” she said.

“They won our inaugural Final of Finals festival so I suppose you could say that Rishton made history that day being the first club to win an event like this. It’s a real achievement from a group of women who just took part for a bit of fun at a local charity event.”

Rishton will continue to play softball festivals next year and return to training in February and welcome new players to give it a go.

“We hope in the coming years we will progress to hardball as well as continuing Softbal1,” added Slater. “We hope in us creating a women’s team, we inspire the next generation of girls to give cricket a try.”

For more details about softball at Rishton email Lara Slater at lara_slater@hotmail.co.uk