About 60 people enjoyed a special day at Oakridge Cricket Club to mark a very important milestone in their history.

Current players, past players and their families were present as the club, which is six miles to the east of Stroud and eight miles to the west of Cirencester, celebrated their 125^th anniversary.

The club, who last season played in Division 6B of the Gloucestershire Cricket League, held an inter-club game and although only five overs were possible before the weather intervened, the rain failed to dampen the spirits.

“The weather was a shame but it was still a great day,” said Steve Robbins, one of Oakridge Cricket Club’s driving forces, who has been playing for them for more than 30 years.

“I laid all the history of the club out in the village hall for everyone to look over.

“We had old photos, scorecards, books, fixture cards and kit from as far back as 1920, it was a great event.”

The club had first started talking about doing something for their anniversary at the end of the 2024 season, but it now appears they may  have been more than 40 years late in celebrating their 125^th!

“We have discovered since announcing our anniversary, thanks to an eagle-eyed villager, that Oakridge were playing games in 1872,” explained Robbins.

“And potentially, according to a newspaper archive, before 1856.

“However, it is hard to follow exactly and I think the club maybe disbanded in the late 1800s and started again.

“There are newspaper reports stating the club was formed in 1899/1900 in a published AGM report. Who knows?”

Robbins, who is 42, is particularly keen to know when the club were first formed because for the past 15 years or so he has painstakingly uploaded every Oakridge result recorded from 1900 on Play-Cricket.com.

“The idea of uploading another 50 years of scorecards is both terrifying and fascinating,” he laughed.

Robbins, along with his older brother Mark, who still plays, dad Dennis and uncle Lionel, has been a major player for Oakridge over the years.

Dennis and Lionel, who is the club’s groundsman, have just celebrated their 80th birthdays, and the four of them have played more than 3,300 games between them for the club.

Steve knows the exact figure, of course – it’s 3,336! – and they have scored 69,185 runs, made 395 half-centuries, hit 57 centuries, taken 3,555 wickets and claimed 1,052 catches in those games.

“Naturally there is a proudness of the family name but the wider story of village cricket is more important than that as we strive to keep the village game alive,” said Robbins.

And they are working hard to do just that.

The club have recently started running the All Stars and Dynamos coaching programme for youngsters up to the age of 11 – Mark Robbins and James Hemming are the duo behind it – and Steve continued: “We’ve been getting up to 60 kids turning up, it’s been really good.

“The next step we’ve got to look at is setting up an under-12 team so that we can keep the players, and maybe having half-a-dozen Sunday  fixtures so that they can play more games.

“When I first started playing for the club at the age of  11 or 12, we were playing 45 to 50 games. At the moment the only cricket we play is Saturday league cricket.”

Mark Robbins’ 17-year-old son Charlie opens the bowling on Saturdays and Steve is optimistic about the future.

“Yes, I am,” he said. “It’s grassroots village cricket, we want to keep it going, I think we will.”