Sibton Park Cricket Club held its annual young cricketers awards evening on 27th January at Lyminge Village Hall. Despite appalling weather the hall was full to welcome guest of honour Mr. Jo Rice, National Chairman of the Lords Taverners.

2005 proved to be another great year for the club, on and off the field with changes at all levels resulting from Sibton’s newly acquired status as an ECB Focus Club with Sport England ClubMark accreditation which introduced new different coaching practices, techniques, a commitment to Long Term Athlete Development. Many of the new procedures took a bit of getting used to, like starting coaching sessions with fitness training instead of going straight into the nets. However the biggest and most welcome change was the presence in the hall, for the first time, of Sibton’s girl cricketers.

Sibton’s Saxon Shore League teams had another splendid year with the Under 13’s and 15’s finishing the season as champions of their respective Saxon Shore Leagues. George Leadbetter, captain of the Under 15s finished the season as leading run scorer and wicket taker, while, Jamie Keeler led the wickets table in the U13s unbeaten season. The Under 11’s finished mid table and there were plenty of friendly fixtures, some against other Focus Clubs.

Since Sibton Park became an ECB Focus Club at the beginning of 2005 there has been many changes and developments within the club. One of the largest developments was working in partnership with the Kent Cricket Board to introduce girls cricket into Shepway through school taster sessions and an Introductory Day. After much hard work from the club’s coaches and the girls themselves the girl’s team played their first friendly matches at the end of the 2005 season and took part in the Lady Taverners U13 Girls Indoor Festival over the Christmas holiday period. In 2006 Sibton Park will be playing in the SeaFrance U13 Kent League and have a programme of friendly matches for the other age groups. To aid the expansion of the teams Jo Rice presented 2 Lords Taverners equipment bags.

Highlight of the evening was the new Jim Law Sports Person of the Year Award, won by Cassie Stickland, captain of the Girl’s U15. Jim Law was one of Sibton’s greatest ever players, much missed since his death 2 years ago. Jim’s wife Vera presented the award, saying how much pleasure it gave her to award the cup to a girl player. Jim was a keen supporter of girl’s cricket and their daughter June enjoyed a long and successful career keeping wicket for Kent and England.