Barnsley Beeches Cricket Club are flying high this season.

They are top of Division One of the Cotswold District Cricket Association’s Saturday League having won all seven of their games so far and are well placed to clinch the title they last won in 2015.

They have a healthy 34-point advantage over second-placed Oakridge and chairman Andrew Coulter is delighted with the way things are going.

“We play as a team,” said the 58-year-old. “We’re a unit, we bat as a unit and we bowl as a unit. We back each other up in the field.”

Coulter is still playing for a team he joined 27 years ago and he has been chairman for the past eight or nine years.

“We’ve got about 40 players and about 25 are regularly available,” continued Coulter, a spinner who bowls left-arm around.

“Alex Jeffries is in his second season as captain, he’s doing a good job.

“He’s also our wicketkeeper. He’s a better captain than wicketkeeper, he’d admit that!”

The club also play in the CDCA’s midweek T20 league and in addition they play the odd game on Sundays, but while they are clearly enjoying a good time Coulter is certainly not getting carried away.

Ask him what the aim for the club is and he says quite simply: “Survival.”

He explained: “The league are losing a team every year.

“We rely on subscriptions, sponsorship and match fees. We don’t have a youth team or a women’s team so we don’t get any funding.”

But what they do have is a very proud history.

“There’s been cricket at Barnsley Park for 150 years,” continued Coulter. 

“It’s privately owned and it’s a beautiful place to play cricket but if we stop playing that will be it, there won’t be any more cricket played there again.”

Coulter lives in Quenington, which is only four miles from the cricket ground, and he is enjoying his cricket as much now as he ever did.

“We’ve got quite a few Indians and Sri Lankans playing for us,” he said.

“They’re helping to keep the club going. They love their cricket. They get stuck in and it works really well. Cricket is a great way to integrate communities.”

Barnsley Beeches took their name when Barnsley Cricket Club merged with Beeches Cricket soon after the Second World War.

Should the club win the Saturday League this season they won’t be looking to move into the Gloucestershire County League.

“I don’t think our facilities will allow us to play at the next level,” said Coulter.

“Last time we declined the opportunity and I think it would be the same decision this time.”