On Friday 18th July the first ever Red Monkey Play Primary Cup came to its conclusion. The competition, in partnership with Leicestershire County Cricket Club and sponsored and supported by Red Monkey Play, was made up of 5 rounds of competition involving 30 schools and over 300 pupils from our Chance to Shine programme. Each round was held at LCCC’s Grace Road and preceded each of their home Natwest T20 Blast fixtures.
The competition gave the school children further opportunities to participate in fun and competitive cricket at a first class county ground. As well as playing themselves they were also given the opportunity to meet the LCCC professional cricketers and watch them take on other counties in the T20 Blast competition.
A huge ‘Thank You!’ must go to Red Monkey Play who provided support at every game, providing hats and refreshments for all the players which was certainly appreciated by those playing on the hotter days of the English summer! Further thanks must also go to all our volunteers from Lancaster Boys School, Rawlins College, Crown Hills College, Crown Hills CC and Leicestershire U17 Girls who helped score and umpire almost 90 games of kwik cricket.
Preliminary Round Results:
Round 1: 18th May (6 schools, 60 children)
Winners – Hall Orchard Primary School
Round 2: 1st June (6 schools, 60 children)
Winners – Shaftesbury Primary
Round 3: 6th June (4 schools, 40 children)
Winners – John Wycliffe Primary
Round 4: 19th June (3 schools, 30 children)
Winners – Gartree High ‘A’
Round 5: 4th July (6 schools, 60 children)
Winners – Ratby Primary
The Grand Final (5 schools, 50 children)
On a very hot and muggy afternoon Hall Orchard Primary, Gartree High, John Wycliffe Primary, Ratby Primary and Burghley
Park took to the Grace Road turf to battle it out as Primary Cup Champions.
As with the preliminary rounds, each individual game contained fantastic skill and in just the first game of the day a hat trick was witnessed as John Wycliffe Primary registered the first win of the day against Gartree High. Ball did not dominate all day, with some fairly unforgiving hits into the George Geary Stand!
Despite their first 2 games being won by just 5 runs Hall Orchard showed early form as title contenders and a further 2 wins by much larger margins meant an unbeaten Hall Orchard team were jubilant as they were crowned 2014 Red Monkey Play Primary Cup Champions.
Click here for all the photos from the final.