Cricket began to be played in Thame in the mid-1800’s, but the Cricket Club’s birth is generally accepted to be 1874, and organised cricket has been played in the town since this date, with suspensions in 1914-1919 and in 1940-1945.
The Club moved to Church Meadow, Thame in 1975, taking a lease from Oxfordshire County Council, and created the cricket ground and pavilion from scratch from the existing low-grade agricultural land and derelict farm buildings. The Club grew from strength to strength after the move, and began to develop its coaching and training activities. It progressed through the Trinity League and then the Cherwell League, and has in the past fielded adult teams on Saturdays, Sundays and mid-week.
In 1998 a former professional cricketer was appointed as Club Coach to run the junior training sessions, and today over 100 juniors practice at the Club on weekday evenings during the summer. Each year we appoint an overseas player-coach to oversee the training programmes.
In 2007 the Club gained full Clubmark Accreditation – this is the Sport England national initiative for quality standards in voluntary club administration.
2015 was a landmark year for the club, which firstly saw the inception of Women’s Cricket through the Crick-Fit scheme, since evolving year on year into a full Women’s hard-ball squad playing in the Home Counties League today. This year also saw the Men’s 1st XI win the Cherwell League Division 1 in an unbeaten season, promoting them to the Home Counties Premier League Division 2 (picture below). This was topped in 2017 by a further promotion to the top league, the Home Counties Premier League Division 1, for the first time in the history of the club.
The Club is run by a General Management Committee of Club Members, listed here. There is also a parallel Junior Committee, which deals with Under-18 matters, and a Cricket sub-committee dealing with all aspects of the adult playing sides, both men and women.
The Club is a Limited Company and Community Amateur Sports Club, and publishes annual accounts.