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KCC History

Kenilworth Cricket Club has existed for over 116 years and is a long established club based on the south side of Kenilworth.

 

Aboutus2_KC

It is thought that we started out life as Kenilworth Bible Class in 1903, changed to Kenilworth St Johns Cricket Club (in affiliation with the church), and finally became Kenilworth Cricket Club in 1950. We bought the ground we had previously been leasing in 1958 and our first pavilion was built in 1959, but was unfortunately burnt down in our first fire on 17th March 1975. The club was rebuilt by a group of members who were known as ‘the Botch Brothers’ and new changing rooms and the bridge club were added in 1993. The bar and function room area was burnt to the ground by our second fire on 15th December 2006, leading to the current clubhouse being built and officially opened in April 2009. Club President Gordon Went’s book ‘The Phoenix Cricket Club’ has a a great amount of detail about the club and its history.

Read our detailed timeline to find out more about our history, including our overseas players.

Or, why not find out about when Kenilworth played Israel in the World Cup qualifiers (almost)?

We are very proud to have had two members selected to represent their country, although they were different countries and nearly 70 years apart! Read our articles about Esther Shakeshaft and Douglas Marillier.

Esther Shakeshaft - KCC  Douglas Marillier - KCC

We were unfortunate to have lost a number of old club photos and archives in the fire that destroyed the bar and function room in December 2006. However, we are slowly recovering more and more images showing KCC’s history, some of which can be seen below. There is also an excellent photo wall in the new pavilion, whose official grand opening was in April 2009.