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After a scramble to make sure every player had his FFBS license in time, 11 regulars from Lille Cricket met up with 10 players from Arcadians Ghent (Belgium) and five from Chantilly Cricket Club to officially launch Lille as a place to play cricket.

Press coverage had been arranged, thanks to Lille’s contact with the press and our local home-grown fast bowler, Maxime Parent, with an article appearing in Nord Éclair on Saturday morning added to an entry on the back page showing the Region’s major events of the weekend. To top it all, France 3 came and spent 3 hours taking shots and which led to a 2-minute appearance on France 3 Nord-Pas de Calais-Picardie’s 19-20 – in the sports slot just after a spot on Racing Lens!
 
Arcadians eventually won the close match by 14 runs and presented an Arcadians cricket shirt to the losing President and to the man of the match, Chantilly junior - Nicky Hedley.

Lille Cricket Club would like to thank everyone for making the historic day such a success, especially:

- to the Jardin Mosaïc and Lille Métropole for providing the pitch and allowing participants and members free entry to the garden for the day

- to Nord Éclair, Voix du Nord and France 3 for taking an interest in cricket and giving us some coverage

- to Simon Fletcher as Umpire, standing all 60 overs in the heat of the day – and having a lenient interpretation of what constituted a wide so that the game could flow

- to the 10 Arcadians and 5 from Chantilly who made the day enjoyable and helped ensure that the match was in the balance from start to finish:

o Arcadians: Charles Blommaert (President), Colin Walker (Captain on the day); Ashan Habib, Alvandré Thompson, Ayash Kapila, Jan de Baets, Niki Lin, Colin Walker, Steve Woodbridge and Raju Singh

o Chantilly: Robin Oakley, Jack Oakley, Simon Hedley, Charly Hedley and Nicky Hedley

- to the 11 Lille Cricketers, who will for ever be the first team to have played in our colours : Richard Wentworth (Captain), Dave Szumowski (Coach), Sumit Gupta, Gareth Wilson, Robin Richardson, Simon Wentworth, Adam Wentworth, Alastair Shaw, Philippe Dethoor, Maxime Parent, Tony Banton

- To those that support us, and have done so throughout the last six months, with a particularly big mention to Helen who lugs our Flicx and kit around every Friday evening and was again on duty on Saturday setting up, scoring, handing round the water and loading everything onto the trailer at the end of the day.