Little Ealing Primary School Lift William Greaves Trophy

Emdad Rahman

The 16th edition of the William Greaves Trophy 2023/24, the UK’s largest indoor primary school cricket competition came to an end with a final’s day at the MCC Academy, Lord’s.

With over 2,000 children taking part in over 350 matches across 16 London boroughs, this was our biggest competition to date.

In 2017, following the death of William “Bill” Greaves, a founding member and trustee of Capital Kids Cricket, the competition was renamed in his honour.

Boroughs competing in the 2023/24 competition included Newham, Kingston, Islington, Camden, Haringey, Tower Hamlets, Redbridge, Waltham Forest, Hackney, Harrow, Westminster, Barking, Richmond, Ealing, Sutton, Barnet.

Finals Day

Following 16 borough rounds and four regional semi-finals, the grand final, as in previous years, was held at the MCC Academy (Lord’s) and brought together the winners and runners up of the semi-final
rounds.

With eight schools representing eight different boroughs, the finals day featured group games with two groups of four, followed by semi-finals and a final.

Little Ealing Primary School, representing Ealing, defeated Latchmere School representing Kingston-upon-Thames in the final and won the trophy.

Finalist schools:

Latchmere (Kingston-upon-Thames), Rokesly (Haringey), Warren Junior (Barking), East Sheen (Richmond), Little Ealing (Ealing), Highlands (Redbridge), Whitchurch (Harrow), Whitehall Park (Islington).

Mayors from 7 London boroughs attended the final to support their boroughs schools. The schools were very excited to see their mayors supporting them.

Attending mayors included Diane White, Mayor of Kingston Upon Themes, Gary Heather, Mayor of Islington, Lester Buxton, Mayor of Haringey, Jyotsna Islam, Mayor Redbridge, Fiona Sacks deputy mayor of Richmond, Hitesh Tailor, Mayor of Ealing, Councillor Ramji Chauhan, Mayor of Harrow.

Shahidul Alam Ratan, CEO of CKC thanked all the schools taken part, teachers and CKC staffs who were working for the last 5 months to make it a successful competition.

He said, “CKC is committed to providing out of schools competitive opportunities and especially encouraging girls to take part in sports with confidence.

“We are delighted with the success of this sidcra me and really pleased to see the children happy and eagerly participating in a safe and happy environment.”

Kalyan Kumar, Chairman of Capital Kids Cricket thanked all teams for their valuable support and encouraged parents to support young people to participate regularly with sports activities.