United Cricket Club becomes Old Benonians
Des Gamble, vice-chairperson of Old Bens, said this project is a dream come true for him.
The Old Benonians football club has recently added another sport to its roster.
The United Cricket Club has revamped one of the fields that was in need of some maintenance and changed their name to the Old Benonians Cricket Club.
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Register your child for cricket at Old Bens
“It’s been 17 months since we dumped our first load of soil on what was then nothing short of an open veld. Much progress has been achieved since,” explained cricket chairperson Shaun Kruger.
“Three thousand odd cubic meters of sand and lots of manual labour later, that veld is starting to resemble a cricket field.”
While lockdown was certainly not ideal for the newly implemented cricket club, it came as a bit of a blessing in disguise for their new field.
“There is still a lot of work to be done to get it to the standard we would like but this is a process and we will continue down the path until we have achieved the end-goal.
“The United Cricket Club started as a junior club 11 years ago and now, under our new name of Old Benonians and with our own home grown field, the first game played on it will be by a junior side. I think this is fitting and I am very excited for the day,” he said.
Des Gamble, vice-chairperson of Old Bens, said this project is a dream come true for him and an absolute success story.
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“If we all pull together, with the right attitude to achieving an almost unthinkable goal, we can achieve it. There are so many people who believed we could do this and many more contributed in many ways to make this possible that no amount of thanks is enough.”
In July the cricket club committee was elected. They are Shaun Kruger (chairperson), Mark Kitching (vice-chairperson), Madelyn Kruger (club captain), Jenny Gamble (treasurer), Mariet Combrinck (marketing), Hannelie Riekert (fund-raising), Lulu Hand (secretary) and Henk van der Kruit (premier coach).
Moving into lockdown level one and with the easing of restrictions, the newly elected committee started working on getting the players onto the field.
With the planned start of the club season in January next year, registrations took place on October 17 at the Old
Benonians football club from 10am to noon. Their annual golf day is on October 21.
“Funds that we raise at the golf day will go towards building our new cricket nets at Old Bens,” said Kruger.
Trials will be held on November 7.
“We are aiming to play at least three warm-up matches per team before the official season starts in January next year,” concluded Kruger.
In celebration of their new field and the official opening, Old Bens invited the Laerskool Rynfield first XI cricket team to play in an inaugural exhibition match on November 21.
