History

Risinghurst Cricket Club was formed in the early 1950s and played friendly fixtures on College grounds until joining the expanding OCA league in the mid 1960s.
We enjoyed immediate success climbing to the league’s Premier Division in 1971, and although the stay was brief the Club had made its name on the local stage. In 1972 we moved to our current Grovelands Road ground, but with some players leaving the area and others retiring, we started to slip down the divisions. Success was not far away though as some shrewd recruitment meant we won the 1982 Telegraph Cup final vs Hook Norton by a single run, with Nick Poulter winning a well deserved man of the match award. League success soon followed as we won Senior Division 4, 3 and 2 in four seasons between 1985 and 1988, with a second Telegraph Cup triumph coming in 1986; Nick Poulter again winning the Man of the Match award in a tied match that we won by loss of fewer wickets.
We soon gained entry into the Premier Section of the League and found ourselves as high as Division 3 in the mid 1990s. Again, we saw players leave the Club and started dropping down the league, with the notable exception of the 2001 season when we won Division 5. We soon slipped back again and by 2009 in Division 8 the Club seemed to be on its last legs.
Serendipity in the form of a chance encounter with a group of players looking for a ground revitalised the club and the next eight seasons the 1st XI gained five promotions and the Division 6 and Division 4 titles in 2013 and 2016 respectively and a third Telegraph cup victory in 2017, remarkably again by loss of fewer wickets in a tied game.
We were also able to introduce a 2nd XI in 2011 and they continued our success by winning Division 10 in 2013 and moving up another division in 2015, winning Division 8 in 2017 and are now in Division 5.
In 2021 a new chapter in the Club’s history begins as we move into an expanded Cherwell Cricket League with all our OCA compatriots as the former embraces all grassroots league cricket within Oxfordshire and the surrounding counties. This will see us our two teams play in regionalised Divisions 5 and 6 where we will play some familiar old foes from the OCA and some long lost friends who have been playing in the Cherwell League for anything up to 40 years.

Records of recent association with the Oxford cricket association and Cherwell league are available here