Surrey Cricket Foundation

Surrey CCC have agreed a funding deal with the Travelbag Surrey Championship that will see the club make significant financial contributions to the league over the next three years.

The Championship is the biggest and highest standard recreational league in the county, with Surrey players from all levels of the club often representing their home clubs on Saturday afternoons throughout the summer.

Founded in 1968, the league is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year with a programme of events throughout the summer, some of which will be held at the Kia Oval.

Under the agreement, the club will provide significant funding over a three-year period starting this season, with the money being used to increase participation at Championship clubs all over the county.

The club and the Championship have signed an agreement cementing the following three principles:

• To put the best interests of players first
• The right format is the format that gets most people playing
• To provide strong leadership that will benefit cricket across the whole county/region

As part of the deal, the Surrey Championship will embark on a drive to expand participation first within Fourth XIs and then Third XIs by experimenting with different formats of cricket offered at these levels.

Richard Thompson, Chairman of Surrey CCC and former player in the Surrey Championship, said: “The Surrey Championship is one of the biggest and best leagues in the country and has played an important role in the development of some of the club’s finest players over the last fifty years.

“Without volunteer organisations like the Surrey Championship, a core part of English sporting culture would not be able to survive. I am very pleased that we have been able to bring this partnership together and look forward to watching the fruits of our labour in years to come.”

Roland Walton, President of the Travelbag Surrey Championship, added: “So many volunteers from all our Championship Clubs give up their valuable leisure time to help develop their members’ playing aspirations and to improve the facilities within their respective clubs – they are unsung heroes.

“Surrey Championship Clubs demonstrate all that is good in recreational cricket throughout the County and beyond. “It is with great pride that we enter a partnership agreement binding all of this together, which will help us to become an even stronger force for all the challenges ahead.”

Paul Taylor, Director of the Surrey Cricket Foundation, concluded: “This is an innovative and important agreement made between the county club and the county’s biggest recreational league.

“Under this agreement, the club looks forward to working in tandem with the Championship to drive participation, improve facilities and ensure that cricketers in the county are able to play the format of cricket they want, when they want and in a high-quality environment.”