These are exciting times for Tewkesbury Cricket Club.

The go-ahead West of England Premier League club are looking forward to competing in Premier 2 Glos/Wilts this season after winning promotion last year and, as you’d expect, there’s plenty of optimism around the club.

They’ll be rubbing shoulders with the likes of Cheltenham, Dumbleton and Hatherley and Reddings in the 10-strong division and they are certainly not stepping up just to make up the numbers.

They clinched the Gloucestershire Division title by mid-August – they could and should have won it sooner – and skipper Tom Allcoat wants to kick on this season.

“The aim is to be among the top few this season,” said Allcoat, a seam bowling all-rounder.

“It would be great to go into August and still have a mathematical chance of being promoted.

“We were just beaten to promotion in 2023 by Dumbleton and they finished fourth last season, that’s a good marker for us.

“We’ll have the element of surprise and our approach will be to attack the division.

“When we got to this level about 10 years ago our aim was to survive and we went back down after two years.”

Tewkesbury were playing in the Gloucestershire County League as recently as 2021, so they’ve certainly come a long way in a relatively short time.

A number of new players have joined the club over the winter and Allcoat continued: “It’s exciting, when you have a bit of success players want to join you, we can attract good players.

“We’ve got three or four very strong additions to the club.”

Chief among them is their overseas player Josh Richards, a South African who bats at the top of the order and bowls leg spin.

Tewkesbury will also be able to call on University of Exeter students Luca La Costa, a left-hand bat, and Archie Freeth, a right-arm fast bowler, for the first half of the season. Both are friends of established Tewkesbury player Louis Whitmore who is also studying in Exeter.

Right-arm fast bowler Tom Morris and wicketkeeper/batsman Dan Brabham, both ex-Gloucester, are another couple of new signings who will be in the mix for the opening league game of the season at home to Painswick on Saturday 3^rd May.

“This season will be a new challenge,” added Allcoat. “We’ll be going to new grounds – Corsham, Goatacre, Chippenham and Purton – so that will be something different for a lot of the players.”

And while the flagship team are flying, there’s a feelgood factor throughout the club at the moment.

“We’re running four men’s teams on a Saturday, our ladies’ cricket is booming and the junior section is growing all the time,” said Allcoat.

“The one problem we have is that there is too big a gap between our men’s 2^nd XI and our 3^rd XI, we need the 3rds to get promoted.”

And you certainly wouldn’t bet against that happening given the progress the club have made in recent times.

“For someone like myself who first started coming to the club at the age of seven, there have been a lot of personnel changes and some huge structural changes, we’re much better organised these days,” said Allcoat.

And it’s showing on the pitch.

“We don’t just want to do well in the league, we want to do well in the WEPL T20, the County Cup and the Cheltenham Premier T20. It would be nice to win some silverware,” added Allcoat.