A clash of cricketing cultures has torn a league apart in the Home Counties, with the 26-year-old Tees Herts & Essex Cricket League (HECL) recently dissolved and replaced by a new village cricket league bidding to reduce travel time and preserve village cricket.

In just a few months, the ambitious start-up has acquired a majority share of clubs formerly under the auspices of HECL – around 30-35, according to sources – and introduced stricter entry criteria, leaving several clubs facing a winter in limbo. Despite a wave of support for the new venture, those in the HECL camp have questioned the new league’s motives, describing it as “regressive” and “distasteful”. WCM caught up with figures on both sides of the fence.

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Founded in 1993 by nine clubs in the Bishop Stortford area, with the M11 serving as the ‘spine’ of the league, the HECL underwent a recruitment drive in the late 90s, taking on clubs inside the M25. The expansion peaked five or six years ago, with more than 40 clubs and 60 teams across six divisions. Then dark clouds gathered; the national decline in participation was echoed around the villages, with away-day travel in particular becoming an issue. “There have been grumblings for years about the geography,” says Paul Richardson, who was recently installed as acting chairman of the HECL. “With teams folding, travelling has been made the easy scapegoat.”

In the latest Club Debate, @Rich_Wisden talks to a national award winner about how a newly-formed club absorbed existing traditions to safeguard grassroots cricket in its local area.https://t.co/XQXyhb1awr

— Wisden (@WisdenCricket) November 5, 2019

Five divisions operated in 2019, comprising traditional one-team village outfits, the lower XIs of Premier League clubs in neighbouring leagues, and clubs recruited inside the M25 during the league’s major growth period. Underlying tensions boiled over at the end the season when David Brown, chairman of Stansted Hall & Elsenham CC, claimed to have around 30 clubs willing to join a breakaway league, insisting members were reluctant to travel to clubs located inside the M25, and that there were other issues, relating to facilities.

The HECL confirmed that it officially disbanded after the remaining member clubs voted “unanimously in favour of the resolution to dissolve the league” at its final AGM on November 18. The management committee will discharge all remaining debts and liabilities and donate any remaining assets to charitable causes. “We would like to wish all clubs and players every success as they move on to pastures new and hope that club cricket continues to prosper on the borders of Hertfordshire and Essex,” the committee wrote, before signing off with a short poem:

Play the Game

“For when the One Great Scorer
comes to mark against your name,
He writes not that you won or lost,
but how you played the game!”
– Grantland Rice