Published on: Friday, June 2, 2023
This summer will undoubtedly be another exciting one at King’s College as the Cricket Festivals look forward to welcoming over 70 teams from all over the UK and beyond.
This year sees a new look website for the festivals, www.kingscricketfestivals.co.uk, which contains information about fixtures, results, live match access, news, plus information for visitors and sponsors.
Once underway, there will be weekly festivals for boys from U10 up to U14 age groups and the first full week’s festival for the girls' U13 teams, with 12 teams competing across the week. This year we will have several teams from America attending, along with familiar faces from Barbados and also St Stithian’s School from South Africa returning in 2023. The six weeks of action-packed cricket will start on Monday 10 July and finish on Friday 18 August.
King's cricket coach Keith Parsons is in charge, and with a few weeks to go, the former Somerset CCC favourite said: “After a lot of hard work and the great support I have received, we are now looking forward to getting the cricket underway. Let’s hope the sun shines and everyone who comes along has a good time playing cricket."
King’s College has incredible grounds and facilities, with six perfect pitches. Keith added: “We all know that at some stage during the six weeks, the weather is going to stop play, but there are several indoor facilities we can use at King’s, plus Somerset CCC and the Somerset Cricket Museum are not too far away so the players can go and have a look round."
Since it began nearly 40 years ago, the King’s Festival has grown into one of the biggest and best-known tournaments, not just in England but internationally. The first 'West of England' festival was held at Truro Cricket Club in Cornwall in July 1983. Eventually, all these festivals moved to King's College at Taunton, helped by phenomenal work by the then Head Groundsman, Dennis Breakwell.