Staffordshire Cup cricket competition ended after 36 years

Staffordshire Cup cricket competition ended after 36 years

Due to the diminishing number of entrants, the weakening support for the competition over a number of years and the considerable pressures on players due to the increasing numbers of alternative competitions, a decision has been made by the Staffordshire County Cricket Club committee that the Staffordshire Cup competition will be discontinued with effect from 2018.

Running the competition has proved difficult in recent years with fixture congestion causing more and more headaches for both clubs and the organisers, so much so that there has been a bottle neck in arranging matches with the perception that the competition has fallen to the bottom of the pecking order in both players and clubs priorities. In 2017 there were just 21 clubs who entered the competition and a number of those conceded their games.

The Staffordshire County Cricket Board will consider whether there may be a future role for the competition in a different format with maybe an option to play it as a youth competition in future years.

The first winners of the Staffs Cup were Stone in 1981 with Wolverhampton being the most recent winners, defeating Porthill Park in the 2017 final.

Posted on Monday 4th December 2017, in Latest News