The club was formed in 1947 and
was originally known as Ickenham North End Cricket Club.
It later became known as Ickenham Sports CC and was
also known as Ickenham North End Sports Club. The name
Iver Heath was not adopted until November 1973.
Details of the club are sketchy
up until the mid 60's. Ickenham North End Sports Club
CC moved to Iver around this time and, along with Iver
Heath Football Club, Iver Heath Tennis Club and Iver
Heath Ladies Hockey Club, formed the Iver Heath Sports
Association. The association was approved by Iver Parish
Council in January 1966 and formally introduced in March
of that year to replace the Recreation Grounds Committee
that looked after the Iver recreation ground. The IHSA
were to be responsible for the maintenance and upkeep
of the new pavilion being built at Church Road. The
pavilion was due to be opened in April 1966 but was
not completed until the following year.
Ickenham Sports CC - Mid
1960's
(click on image
to see larger picture)
The cricket club became financially
and administratively seperate from it's parent
club, Ickenham North End, at the beginning of
the 1972 season and officially changed it's name
to Iver Heath Sports Association Cricket Club
(IHSACC) in November 1973.
The 1974 season saw the newly
renamed club joining the Club Cricket Conference
and they would have made good use of the Conference
the following season as a new square was laid
at Church Road.
It is interesting to note
that throughout all of it's time at Iver that
the cricket club were in constant discussion with
Iver Parish Council (IPC) about the state of the
wicket at the Rec. Numerous letters passed between
the organisations from 1966 to 1999 about it's
poor state.
In 1977 the responsibility of maintaining the
cricket square passed from the council contractors
to the club itself and the minutes of the time
report an improvement in play though, strangely,
this led to the council doubling it's ground rent
to £40 per year. This was offset by the
club refusing to pay IPC the previous years charges
due to the state of the wicket. Over the next
22 years the club played on the Iver "Death
Track" with little or no success. Visiting
teams feared playing at the Rec due to it's 'sporting'
nature. The home team weren't overly keen on playing
there either ! It is recorded in the IPC Grounds
Committee minutes in 1988 that the club asked
to borrow the heavy roller from Iver Heath CC
in Billet Lane.
Ickenham Sports CC
- 1972
(click on image
to see larger picture)
Ickenham Sports
CC - Mid 70's
(click on image
to see larger picture)
The AGM held 31 March 1989 will prove to be a
turning point in the clubs history. A number of
the clubs founding members were retiring or moving
away from the area and called for the club to
be folded. A small hardcore of players voted down
this proposal and vowed to continue running the
club. The following season saw the election of
Hugh Mitchell as Chairman of the club; a position
he has retained ever since.
1990 saw negotiations take
place with IPC regarding moving to Billet Lane,
the former home of the now defunct Iver Heath
CC, but this was dismissed as unworkable due to
a number of security issues. Apparently someone
had stolen the heavy roller from the ground earlier
that year !
The "Great Fire of Iver"
took place in 1992 and could have spelled the
end for the club. Arsonists set fire to the pavilion
early one April morning and the resulting fire
detroyed all of the clubs kit which had been stored
there during the Winter.
Iver Heath CC 2003
(click on image
to see larger picture)
Despite this setback, the club
continued to move forward with the introduction
of coached nets, a tour to Somerset as well as
the introduction of younger players and the promise
of playing in the 1994 Bucks 20 over knockout
tournament (we're
still waiting, Ian !). The new
pavilion was officially opened June 12 1994 at
the Iver Heath Family Fun Day which saw the cricket
club hosting a stall at the funfair as well as
aquitting itself in the 5-a-side tournament. Relations
with IPC, however, were still strained despite
their agreement to install a new square at the
end of the season for £20,000.
The club remained a travelling
side until the 1996 season when it returned to
Church Road and continued playing there until
1999 when IPC served notice that with immediate
effect the cricket pitch was to be removed and
replaced with a childrens play area. The final
game at Iver Rec was against Headstone 12 September
1999.
Having moved to Farnham Royal
for the 2000 season, the club officially cut all
links with IHSA and changed it's name to Iver
Heath Cricket Club.
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