Wavertree Cricket Club was founded in 1854, a time that history shows as one when the village was being 'modernised' to house the many families who were moving out of the city centre into the more 'healthier' countryside. The club acquired its 'field' from the Hornby family who had purchased the nearby Sandown Hall and its estate from the profits of their trading with the Baltic countries. Sandown Hall may no longer be in place, yet Wavertree Cricket Club is still based at Sandown Lane where the 19th town houses within the local Conservation area continue to watch over the ground.
The fortunes of the club have oscillated over its lifetime although history indicates a healthy fixture list that enabled the club to field two teams on Saturdays, at least one on a Sunday and one Midweek XI throughout the whole of this period excepting during the two World Wars. Friendly Cricket was the norm until 1937 when the club, along with a number of others within the sub-region, agreed to form the Merseyside Cricket Competition for club 1st and 2nd XI's based around the results of fixtures played between themselves as arranged by their respective fixture secretaries, the table being determined on a percentage basis. This arrangement was replacing a looser 'Merit table'' that had been in place since the latter years of the 19th century. The more formal league arrangements as we know today were to be put in place in the middle years of the 20th century. The club now fields four Saturday teams playing League Cricket, retains its commitment to Sunday and Midweek fixtures as well as having a thriving junior section.
The club had to wait until the 1950's before experiencing its first success in any competition, which like buses came back to back as the club had a successful two seasons at both 1st and 2nd XI level before 'returning to form' until the final decade of the 20th century and the first decade of the new millennium when the club blossomed in all competitions within the Merseyside Cricket Competition framework as well as expanding on all fronts to become a 'model club' within the sub-region, particularly in its work in promoting and developing cricket for children and young people within the Wavertree area of the city, the club now being on the cusp of the inner city and suburban Liverpool, although the local area still retaining its village 'feel'.
This book has enabled the club and its members to try and regain some of its early and middle 'lost history', (about which it has been somewhat negligent), through the help of the Liverpool City Archive Department; revisit its own archives of the most recent 50-years via the minutes of the AGM's, other documentation and photographs, as well as draw upon the lived histories of many of its past and present members who have shared their stories, photographs and memorabilia of living in or moving to Liverpool during the 20th century, experiences that had, or still have, Wavertree CC in a prominent place in their lives. The club can boast an occasional link with a 'known' player from within the world of cricket at various times during its long history which adds a 'little verve' to the story, yet the real heroes and stars are the members and their families who have been, and always will be, the heart and soul of Wavertree Cricket Club.
