Ashington Rugby Cricket Club
Tuesday March 19 2024 
Featured Sponsors

Ashington Town Council
K Plastics
150 Years Ashington Town Council
G & B Property Maintenance
3C Services Ltd
Melly's Carpets & Beds
158233 visitors
since April 1, 2008

RSS Feed

Club History



 

Proud of our Mining Heritage

Cricket at our ground was first played by Mineworker's Mechanics at the Ashington Colliery Workshops, which was at the time adjacent to our ground. They set up a team to play in the Coal Industry Social Welfare Organisation (CISWO) Midweek League; and played on one astro turf wicket, which was in the middle of the grass square. They then joined the Saturday Northumberland Cricket League. The Workshops team was set up approximately in the early 1970's and stopped playing in 1983/84 season.

The Workshops team then had players who used to work at the nearby Ellington Combine Colliery “The Big E” which was the largest coal mine in Northumberland, they then formed a team called Ellington Mechanics and started playing in 1983 in the (CISWO) Midweek League, some of these men wanted to start playing competitive cricket on Saturdays in a proper formatted league. This is how the team was formed in 1984 and called Ellington Combine and they then joined the Northumberland Cricket League.  

In 1982 Newbiggin Cricket Club who also was playing in the CISWO Midweek League. This team also changed its name and moved home and started playing Saturday cricket under the name of Northern Social Cricket Club, who joined the Alnwick & District Cricket League. They played their cricket at Lynemouth Colliery Welfare at another CISWO Ground.

During the late 1990’s Northern Social Cricket Club was struggling to field a team and their wicket at the Lynemouth Welfare was a little bit unpredictable to say the least. This is when the two Ashington based clubs Ellington Combine and Northern Social met and talked over a merger. The benefits were plain Northern had support of the Social Club in terms of raising funds.

Ellington Combine had a good infrastructure and had two Saturday teams, with a decent wicket and facilities and they also played in a higher standard of local cricket. Ellington Combine played their cricket at the CISWO Recreation Welfare Ground in Ashington or more commonly known as the “Rec” or Rugby Ground.  

By joining the clubs together it meant that the club could field two decent teams, with good facilities, they would have a strong management committee and the financial support of the Social Club. The merger took place in 1999.

Both clubs at the time did not want to lose their identity so the new club had the long name of Ellington and Northern Social Cricket Club, this name lasted one season and the name was cut down to Northern Social Cricket Club for the 2000 season. This decision was not easy for the former members of Ellington Combine however they eventually realised the potential of the new club. 

The following 2001 season the club set up a third team in the Northumberland League Midweek competition; this is for players who do not get selected on Saturdays or new members and to also give juniors a try out against adults.  

In 2004 we wanted to give the club an identity in terms of a badge/crest. The main consensus was that the various club names and history throughout its years was linked directly to the mining industry. Indeed a number of our former players either worked in the industry or their forefathers did. So we decided to look to a badge/crest with this in mind so not to lose our proud history and as you can see at the top of this page our badge/crest is a miner’s lamp with a glowing light.

The glowing light is to show that our mining heritage and history still burns bright and we are proud of where we came from.

Indeed you will hear the regular call from the players and members on match days “For the Badge” when they beat their chests.

In 2007 the club set itself a new challenge of setting up and developing a junior section which should bear fruits in coming years as the club must look to the younger generation as a good foundation for the years ahead.

The 2010 season saw our club play under a new identity that of Ashington Rugby Cricket Club, there was a number of reasons for the change, the Social Club was struggling and funding was becoming a problem and also all our members could not enter the Social Club being under 18 years of age and as we had a membership with approximately 40% under 18's this did not make sense.

Ashington Rugby Club have been for a number of years asking us to come in with them and for the reasons listed above this made it the right time to change our name. We have played at our home ground which we share with the Rugby Club since 1983 and we have always thought the Rugby Club as our own home so why not make it official.

We see this as our real home and see the name of Ashington Rugby Cricket Club as our real identity. It is also good to have the name of a village or a town as it gives the club a home base in its name and can be recognised by this.

 

 



Click here to edit your copyright text.

Powered by mySportSite.com Team Website Platform
Terms and Conditions | Privacy Statement