Less than 48 hours after the longest day of the year, some of the players and members of Hatherley and Reddings Cricket Club could be about to experience their longest weekend of the year.

That’s because this weekend is the club’s now annual beer and cider festival, which gets under way at noon on Saturday and ends some time on Sunday evening.

As with all the best beer and cider festivals, there will be plenty of entertainment too with cricket on the Saturday and Sunday and music on Saturday evening.

Throw in a bit of World Cup football – England play Panama on Sunday at 1pm – and it’s easy to see why the club’s cricket chairman Jake Nickell is looking forward to the weekend so much.

The 1st XI will be centre stage on Saturday when they host Kingsholm at North Park in a West of England League Gloucestershire Division clash.

That’s pretty serious cricket, of course, and Hatherley will be looking to cement their position in the top half of the table, but Sunday’s offering will be less so.

That will feature four teams competing in an eight-a-side tournament and appropriately enough at a beer and cider festival, two of the sides taking part are from well-known Cheltenham drinking establishments – The Rotunda and The Retreat.

Teams from Withington Cricket Club and the host club make up the quartet and Nickell said: “It should be a lot of fun.”

The teams will play each other in round-robin with the top two competing in a final which is scheduled to start at about 5.15pm.

The first group game will start at 11am and there will be a break in the middle of the competition so that all the players can watch England take on Panama.

“The games should be quite interesting after the football,” laughed Nickell, who thinks it is the first time that the club have ever staged an eight-a-side competition.

“We’ve played in six-a-side but never an eight-a-side tournament,” Nickell said before adding with a laugh, “I’m sure some of the older members will be grumbling about it!”

The tournament is the brainchild of the club’s fixtures secretary Dan Midwinter, who also plays cricket on Sundays for Commoners, the hugely popular club who play at Nympsfield and who have been running a very successful eights tournament for many years now.

If Hatherley’s is as successful – and there’s every reason to think it will be – then it could become a permanent feature on their fixture list too.

The beer and cider festival, which they run in conjunction with the Rotary Club Cheltenham North, has become well established over the past four or five years and there is certainly a feelgood factor around the club after the flagship team’s impressive 45-run league win over previously unbeaten leaders Gloucester City Winget five days ago.

“That was a good win,” said Nickell. “Seamer Nick Weekes took five wickets and Max Kelly made 47 and Sam Dent 36.”

It was Hatherley’s second win on the bounce after three successive defeats and they are comfortably placed in fifth spot in the 10-strong division after winning four of their opening seven games.

“I think we’ll be really happy with a top half of the table finish this season,” added Nickell, who himself has been among the runs in 2018 and is averaging around 40 for the 2nd XI.

And there have been plenty of runs in the 3rd XI as well this season, most notably for Sam Powell. He scored an unbeaten 222 in his side’s 316 for eight, helping Hatherley to a 28-run Gloucestershire League Division Seven win over Bourton Vale 2nds last month.

“He’s a good player,” said Nickell.

Hatherley’s game against Kingsholm on Saturday starts at 12.30pm and the live music is provided by The Ukeholics.

“They play modern covers,” added Nickell, “they’re good fun.”

This year the Rotary Club Cheltenham North are fundraising for local charities, Gloucestershire Young Carers, The Willow Trust and LINC, and international charities SolarAid, Zambia, and School in a Bag, Nepal.