ST MINVER and Ludgvan Cricket Clubs have both accepted demotion from County Division One of the LWC Drinks Cornwall Cricket League, which in turn means that Werrington seconds, who finished in the bottom two, have been given a reprieve.

A Cornwall Cricket League statement read: “They have withdrawn their appeals to the Cornwall Cricket Board (CCB) against the decision of the League to relegate them for failing to be Clubmark accredited by October 31, 2017.

“ECB Clubmark is an accreditation scheme for cricket clubs and is licensed from Sport England as part of their wider Clubmark scheme.

“ECB Clubmark shows that a club is sustainable, well run and provides the right environment for its members. Clubmark accreditation also means your club is recognised as a safe, rewarding and fulfilling place for participants of all ages, as well as assuring parents and carers that they are choosing the right option for their young people.

“The requirement for County Division One clubs to be Clubmark accredited was voted in by clubs at the AGM in January 2014 to take effect for 2016, but has been deferred for two years.

“St Minver Cricket Club withdrew their appeal after officers realised there had been numerous communications made by the CCB’s Community Development Officer (Joe Skinner) regarding their Clubmark reaccreditation throughout the summer, which had not been acted on.

“The club have apologised to the league stating they had been acting in good faith and were not in any way trying to appeal the decision by giving false information.

“The league accepts St Minver’s apology and appreciate the efforts of the club’s new administration as they aim to be Clubmark accredited again at the earliest opportunity.

“As a result of the two vacancies Werrington seconds and Roche will not now be relegated from County Division One.”

St Minver’s chairman, Marie Centini, admitted that the error has proved costly.

Mrs Centini told the Post: “We weren’t aware of the emails but for some reason the club had missed them. The league committee weren’t initially aware of them either but once they were and they had showed us them we had no grounds to appeal so we withdrew it.

“However we’re going to look to reapply for Clubmark as quickly as possible.”

St Minver had been in County Division One since 2014 and also reached the Hawkey Cup final in 2016, and have a number of players who will be courted by other clubs.

Mrs Centini admits that at present they’re looking to speak to individuals about their plans for next year, but is confident of an immediate promotion charge, if most of the squad stay together.

She said: “It’s obviously a big blow to go down but at the moment we’re trying to work out who is staying and who is likely to go. Lots of players have been approached by other clubs but we need to find out what their plans are so we know whether we’re going to be able to field two teams.

“But hopefully we can go straight up although that depends on which players remain. But if we do manage to keep most of them we’ll be looking to go back up as quickly as possible.”

While St Minver are currently licking their wounds and working out where the club goes from here, Werrington seconds have been given a reprieve.

Skipper Mark Hodgson will once again be in charge next term, but admits that they need a big improvement to ensure survival next summer, after winning just four games in 2017.

He told the Post: “To be honest I’d have been happy either way after last year. The firsts struggled for a regular team and it makes it very hard for us to compete. Saying that, we want to play at the highest standard we can, so we’ll look to strengthen and may even get an overseas in for the seconds if we can.

“But we know we definitely need to improve. The first year we were in County One we had a great start but this year we got off to a shocking start and we couldn’t really recover.”

Werrington’s big problems were in the batting, and that’s where Hodgson is looking for reinforcements.

He said: “We need to strengthen a lot and our main problem was our batting. We’ve got good young seamers and Mark Taskis came through last year to be a good spinner for us but we don’t have much experience in the batting. Our openers have been a bit of a problem and we don’t have anyone in the middle order who can come in really and give it a whack. We had Ben Jenks (Jenkin) and myself at three and four but we didn’t have a lot else at times.

“We’ll hopefully look for an overseas or even a decent club cricketer who can come in and bat in the top order but it’s hard these days with all the regulations to get one.”

Hodgson expects the league to be even weaker than last term following Ludgvan and St Minver’s relegations and no teams coming down from the ECB Cornwall Premier League.

He added: “In County One the top four or five teams are pretty good but of the rest, anyone can beat anyone and next summer the league will be weaker again without fail. Ludgvan finished third and St Minver nearly won it a couple of years ago.

“But it’s definitely the league we want to be in but we want to be able to compete.

“It’s my job to make sure the youngsters are ready for Premier League cricket and County One is the next best thing. If they can perform in this league it gives them a good chance of being able to do so in the first team.”

Next year will also see the return of the local derby with Launceston following the Lawhitton-based club’s promotion, and Hodgson admits it should be interesting.

He said: “We haven’t played each other for a few years now. It should be a couple of very exciting games and we’ll look forward to them.”