Herefordshire Take Positive Steps to Ensure More Locals Feature in their National Counties side.

19 May 2025   |   By Paul Bolton NCCA Correspondent

Herefordshire are taking positive steps to ensure that more locals feature in their National Counties side. By Paul Bolton NCCA Correspondent.

Herefordshire have been only playing competitive cricket since 1992 when they joined the ranks of the Minor Counties after Durham became the 18th first-class county but a combination of geographical and cricketing factors beyond their control have limited their ability to bring through as many homegrown players as they would like.

The county, which is largely rural, is the least populous of the 38 playing competitive county cricket – under 190,000 – and has a population density of 87 people per square kilometre. There are just 26 cricket clubs in Herefordshire – a similar number to the town of Solihull – none of which play in an ECB Premier League and for almost 20 years Hereford, the county’s main centre of population, has not had a recognised cricket club.

Despite those handicaps Herefordshire have produced one homegrown first-class player – Glamorgan seamer Jamie McIlroy in recent years and played an important part in developing McIlroy’s Glamorgan team-mate Zain Ul Hassan and leg-spinner Alex Russell, who was released by Northamptonshire at the end of last season. Herefordshire also gave England seamer Chris Woakes an early taste of senior county cricket before he made his Warwickshire debut and their close links with Worcestershire have also given similar exposure to likes of Jack Haynes, Rehaan Edavalath and Olly Cox.

But Herefordshire are keen to grow their own and have now agreed to play three players who were either born in, live in, were educated in the county, and a playing member of a club affiliated to Herefordshire in their side in each of the three National Counties competitions this season, a figure that will increase to four next year.

In their first three National Counties Trophy group matches Herefordshire included Luke Powell, Luke Tulacz, Alex Hinkley and Harry Sockett with Sockett, who played his formative cricket for the Burghill, Tillington and Weobley club before joining Kidderminster in the Birmingham & District Premier League, making his competitive debut against Shropshire at Eastnor.

“We now have an agreement with NCCA that we must play three homegrown - born, bred, go to school, play for a club in or live in the county - players in every game we play,” said Richard Cox Herefordshire Cricket’s General Manager.

“That is now a stipulation. Previously it was a like to do but now it is a must-do and next year it will be four.

 “We have identified six players who fit that category, who are qualified and who are probably going to be good enough. Other than Alex, who plays his club cricket for Brockhampton, the others play in the Birmingham League but they are born and bred in Herefordshire but, in order to play this level of cricket, they have to expand themselves and play in a Premier League.

“There are a couple of others – Olly Rogoff and Ollie Hallion – who are also on the list and a lad, Henry Hawes,  who has just got into Worcestershire’s Twos and who is now living in Colwall who qualifies.

“So, we have players who qualify. We just need to supplement it with other players so that we don’t lose the integrity and balance of the standards that we need to keep.

“NCCA have been very good with us and they understand that a county with just 26 clubs isn’t going to be able to sustain itself without some support.

“The link with Worcestershire is key. They support our Emerging Players Programme and we support Worcestershire by blooding one or two of their players and giving them opportunities that they might not otherwise get.”

Herefordshire have appointed former county seamer Luke Sellers as their new Head Coach as successor to Richard Skyrme, who stepped down at the end of last season having guided them to promotion in the National Counties Championship.

Skyrme played for Herefordshire before they were admitted to the Minor Counties Championship, captained them in their first competitive matches back in 1992 alongside Cox and re-joined as coach in 2018 after working as Director of Sport at Hereford Cathedral School.“Richard made an unbelievable contribution on and off the field which will probably never be beaten in our lifetime I would imagine,” said Cox, who also played in Herefordshire Minor Counties Championship and Trophy debut matches. Skyrme was also Herefordshire’s Performance and Pathway Manager, a role that has now been filled by Ed McCabe who, having spent 24 years working for Warwickshire, now has responsibility for developing future generations of Herefordians into National Counties if not first-class cricketers. Cox and McCabe had worked together at Warwickshire forming a formidable recreational cricket set up under the Warwickshire Cricket Board so are we seeing history repeating itself?

 “If you look at our Under-10s to Under-14s they are 100 per cent Herefordians. It starts to shift from Under-15s upwards. But if three or four of those keep coming through then that’s important to us,” Cox said.

“If you take that away the pathway then what have they got look forward to? Where is the end goal? They start asking: where am I aiming? I might not be good enough to play for Worcestershire, Gloucestershire, Glamorgan or Somerset but I can play for Herefordshire. Some of the names I have mentioned are good examples of that. It’s important that we have that representation and, as last year proved getting promotion, actually we are OK at this.

“Ed had 24 years at Warwickshire and you can’t take away that knowledge and experience. He had already worked in county age group cricket there for 18-19 years and you can already see him making inroads with coaches, coach development, the way we go about things before and during matches, the way we are picking a broader number of players at the younger ages to give people more opportunities with multiple eyes on them.

“In time I think Ed will do really well because he has got not just that skill but he also has great knowledge of club cricket from his time with Warwickshire. That link is probably more important in Herefordshire than it is with Warwickshire because of their broad reach. With us our link with the clubs is so critically important.”

Herefordshire are also tackling the problem of the lack of a cricket club in Hereford since the demise of Hereford City, once the county’s dominant side. Apart from the ground at Herefordshire Cricket’s Pentland Gardens headquarters, which is used only for county youth matches up to the age of 15, players in Hereford have had to travel out of the city to outlying small towns and villages for their club cricket.

That is about to change with the creation of a new cricket ground in the south-east corner of Herefordshire’s racecourse, close to the site of the old Hereford City ground which hosted Worcestershire County Championship and Sunday League matches in the early 1980s.

The ground has been created for new Challengers Hereford club, recently formed by staff from the local hospital, who have entered the Worcestershire League at the lowest level Division Nine Herefordshire South. The Challengers beat Fownhope Strollers Second XI by 203 runs in their first match on Saturday and will welcome Ross on Wye to the Racecourse for their first home match  this weekend.

“The Challengers are a group of medics, porters and nurses from the hospital. They are a single team club so they are playing at the Racecourse every other week,” Cox said.

“We have been helping them to develop the square at the Racecourse near to the Sports Centre. They are good to go this week although, as a facility, it’s a million miles off being ready for representative cricket.”

All in all it’s a watch this space for Herefordshire Cricket as they enter a new era of ECB Strategy’s to 2028. It’s a far cry however from 3 years back when the County was called to emergency ECB meetings about their future. Rome wasn’t built in a day but already the County is finding its feet again in a number of areas and seems to be going from strength to strength.

ENDS