July is here and the senior league season is 9 games old, meaning this is officially the half way point of the overall summer cricketing year. This makes it a timely opportunity to update members on how the club has fared so far during 2026 and the many exciting things still to come.

Pavilion Refurbishment

For a reminder of everything we achieved during the winter and spring, please see the pre-season message here. We promised then that investment would continue and members will have noticed various other improvements to the site over the course of the summer so far:

Refurbished the kitchen with a new worktop, large new fridge space and a dishwasher. This has made match day operations significantly easier for food and drink.
Installed new shower cubicles making them accessible for all, improved the pipework, plus redecorated the walls, ceiling and floors in the shower areas.
Added storage facilities in various places, including in changing room areas and elsewhere.
Fitted club signage to the external areas of the pavilion to make the whole place feel a little more like home.
Supplied clothing hooks in changing rooms and begun redecorating the walls to brighten everything up.

Whilst not strictly related to the cricket pavilion, we have also installed steps next to the WRC clubhouse to enable changing room access when multiple matches are taking place.

Over the next few weeks we are aiming to complete several more items on the list ahead of President's Day on 2nd August:

Finish redecorating the changing room floors, walls, ceilings and benching.
Redecorate the unisex toilet with much lighter colours.
Replace the flooring in the main room and kitchen, plus redecorate walls and ceilings.
Install additional storage facilities.
Numerous minor other improvements throughout e.g. replacing light fittings.

This will make the pavilion a much more welcoming environment for both members and guests. A huge thank you to Barry Brown and John Kendall for their efforts on this significant project and to our contractor Martin Finn for the excellent work so far.

Pitch Improvements

For many cricketers, the most important thing is the pitch being played on. The new NTP has been a huge success for cricket throughout the club at all levels and has provided some great contests. It has also helped provided a real buzz with multiple games at the same time which has been fantastic.

The grass pitch for the 1st XI and 2nd XI has been much improved thanks to some tireless work from the Facilities Committee and especially Barry Brown and Andrew Woolley. This has been achieved despite challenging heatwave conditions, so thank you to everyone for their work here. There is still much work to be done and any additional volunteers in this space would be hugely welcome.

Fundraising

The investments we are making can only be achieved if our supporters actively help us to raise much needed capital. There are many things our members can do to continue supporting our fundraising efforts, with all proceeds going towards improvements for the club. Staying after matches even just for one drink helps towards this too!

Player sponsorship is available here and we will shortly be launching our campaign for the Toyota Good for Cricket raffle prize draw. Some amazing things to be won and one of our members will also be guaranteed to win two test match tickets for England vs Pakistan (to be drawn on President’s Day on 2nd August).

Easyfundraising continues to be an simple method as we close in on the £1000 mark.

We are very lucky to have Currie Motors, Wimbledon Common Golf Club & Tiflex on board as club sponsors and would love to have more. See here for details of available opportunities and there will be news very soon of another recently joined sponsor...

Thanks to John Kendall and the fundraising team for all their hard work in this vital area.

Senior Cricket

1st XI – led by Andrew Merriman sit in 5th place in SCC Division 8 Central. There have already been as many victories during 2026 (four) as during the previous two seasons combined. Hope are high for a top half finish.
2nd XI – Tom Chapman and crew are also in 5th place in SCC Division 11 East Central. Finishing 7th or above would be the best 2s league finish since 2018, so keep going lads!
3rd XI – Tom Campbell's Barmy Army are in 3rd place in SCC Division 12 East Central and currently occupy a promotion place. The club hasn’t had a promotion of any kind since 2015, so we are overdue some success…
4th XI – have played two games, but availability across the club has prevented any more thus far. We would really like it if this picked up again and as a minimum try to beat the number of games played (four) from last year. It helps to make the ongoing investment in our facilities (and especially the NTP) worth it.
Sunday XI – played some really enjoyable cricket with skipper Henry Peirse at the helm. Some great memories made in some nice settings with four wins to boot.
T20 – the 1st XI were knocked out in the first round of the SCC League Cup. The Wild West Dons finished 3rd in the group stages of the Surrey Slam, so have also now exited the competition despite some reasonable performances.

last year

Training - was very well attended at the start of the season, although a mixture of T20s and the football World Cup means recent weeks have been significantly less so. It will help all of us if we attend more as we aim to keep up the momentum for the second half of the season..

Please do continue to set Pitchero availability early, as it would make life much easier for the captains and Director of Cricket Ak Sivaraman. They work incredibly hard to get sides out, so please support them!

Women’s Cricket

Our first ever foray into league cricket has had a promising start, with two victories and the team currently residing in 4th place in SCC Tier 2 North. Several friendlies have been played and a couple of tournaments (including one at the Oval!) so it’s been a brilliant season so far. Stand in skipper Emily Marsh, Emma Green and the team would love to hear from new players so do ask friends and family, even if they haven’t tried cricket before. Fortnightly training has also been available for the first time to help aid this.

Junior Cricket

The summer has seen almost too perfect weather with a lot of fun had at Friday night training across the age groups. The U15s lead the way in their division with a small number of games left, whilst the girls U9s/U11s have also had some success. The boys U8s/U11s are undefeated this season which is remarkable for a team with many new to match play. Keep smashing it everyone and most importantly, keep enjoying it.

Social

There have been several fun events held already thanks to Social Secretary Tom Campbell, including “bring a partner day”. There is plenty coming up too including:

18 July – Quiz Night, with whatever Tom's weird and wonderful brain can throw at us. Expect rugby league, Jedward and town planning rounds...
2 August – President’s Day which brings the whole club together and is a fantastic occasion.
11 August – Britanna Club Oval Social which was a brilliant day last year. For more on how to join the Britannia Club and fundraise for the club please see here.
29 August to 1 September – Annual Tour to Buckingmashire which is always a highlights of the calendar. See here to sign up.
5 September – Final League Game Club Social (more details to follow).
9 October – End of Season Awards Night (more details to follow) hosted at AFC Wimbledon. It's a brilliant way to round off the year so get it in the diary!

Member Benefits

There are many reasons why being part of the WWCC community is a happy place to be, not all of which can be quantified e.g. the feeling of winning a match we looked destined to lose. Some bits can be though and as a reminder:

Complementary WWCC playing shirt and hat for all new playing members.
£10 annual subscription rebate for existing members if introducing a new member or sponsor through our "refer a friend" scheme.
Club voting rights and eligibility for all match fixtures.
Subsidised cricket related qualifications e.g. coaching badges.
Discounted Surrey CC tickets and other county benefits - sign up here for more.
Discounts and other offers available at Toyota Currie Motors.
Reduced green fees at Wimbledon Common Golf Club.

Club Goals

The Management Committee work extremely hard behind the scenes to facilitate cricket for all of our members, so thank you to each and every one of them.

For a full list of things we are actively seeking to achieve in 2026, please see the club development plan here.