History

The Cricket Club has a long established history in the Village.

Here is a picture of the team from 1902. A lot of women were playing in the team back then.

The Club has played at various grounds in the village. When this was taken the ground was believed to be somewhere in the Stumps Lane area of the village.

In the 1950s the Club was given a licence to play cricket at Delling Lane. The ground was located between the current location of the Co-op and the British Telecom exhange and is now used to graze horses.

The Club continued to play cricket in Delling Lane for fifty or so years.

For most of this period the players competed in friendly matches against other local sides.

Unfortunately the development of the then Farm Shop meant that the cricket ground was reduced in size. The road and car park taking some of the outfield. This led to safety concerns and the Club were asked to either stop hitting sixes or stop playing.

There was lots of publicity surrounding the 'hitting six ban' and the story made the national press and the television.

The dispute was never amicably resolved and as a result of the ban cricket stopped being played at Delling Lane.

The Club continued to play league cricket mainly at Oaklands Park in Chichester although it has played a few 'home' games at Singleton and Goodwood as well.

Thanks to the generosity of Patrick Green the Club has played its friendly matches at his private ground at Itchenor Park.

At the beginning of 2010 the Club signed a long term lease on land off Delling Close. For the past few years the Club have been developing this piece of ground in to something suitable to play cricket.

What started off as a 4 acre plot of arable farm land has now been transformed in to something resembling a cricket pitch. The planning permission for a pavilion has been granted by Chichester District Council. Now every Monday evening local children arrive at the ground to train and learn how to play cricket.

After a 16 year absence, on 21 June 2015 Bosham Cricket Club made its official return to the Village for a home fixture against West Sussex Wanderers which was played at the new ground in Delling Close.