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Shropshire Cricket League
Allscott win title to step up to county Premier League
Allscott have won Division One and will step up to the Shropshire Premier League next season.
It is a fitting reward for the league's longest-serving club which took part in the first meaningful division back in 1971.
Until this season they competed under the name of British Sugar, and have just completed 22 unbroken years in our top flight. They also won the title in both 1990 and 1991, but were denied a Premier place in the re-election votes of that era.
Allscott are the most successful club in the SCL's history, as will be shown by our soon-to-be-posted league tables which will display all divisional placings from that 1971 inaugural season.
Worfield are deserved runners-up and pushed Allscott hard for the title.
Church Stretton have clinched the Division Two crown with Ellesmere runners-up - this represents their third successive promotion. Shifnal III are the champions of Division Three, while Worfield II and Cound II move up from Division Four. Beacon and Grove have swept all before them in Division Five. Tibberton II have won Division Six by a healthy margin.
The usual promotion-relegation rules will again apply, but the league is waiting to discover how membership issues involving the SPL and Birmingham League will be resolved. The situation in both leagues is more complicated than usual, so the make-up of our divisions for 2009 may be delayed.
Any new side or club wishing to apply for membership next year must do so by October 15 2008. Contact membership secretary Nick Broadbent at 28 Prince Street, Oswestry SY11 1LD or phone 07960 296520.
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Leading Stats
Most Wins in 2008
Beacon CC, Shrop - 1st XI : 15 wins.
Most Losses in 2008
Lilleshall CC - 3rd XI : 12 losses.
Top Batting Average in 2008
Most Runs in 2008
Most wickets in 2008
Matthew Mackenzie : 61 wickets.
Best Bowling Average in 2008
Our League, its origins, history, development & outlook
Division One feeds into the Shropshire Premier League, so only clubs with a 2nd XI in the league and full facilities are normally allowed to compete above Division Two level. Reserve sides move independently through the divisions and are not tied to the fortunes of their 1st XI, although they cannot compete in Division One.
The Division One champions, along with their 2nd XIs, are promoted annually into the SPL, and have been since integration with the SPL began at the end of the 1998 season following many years of unsuccessful lobbying by our rank-and-file clubs. It became possible owing to the SPL clubs' decision to forge their own links with the Birmingham League in line with the newly-established national pyramid systems of that time.
Two years earlier, the elite 12 clubs that had created and exclusively comprised the top division (including the mirror-image reserve section) of the SCL had broken away to form the SPL owing to the escalating controversy over their closed-shop status, which lasted for an overall 27 seasons.
Today's version of the SCL goes back to 1971 when a group of ten pioneer clubs - some of which are still in our league today - operated in a single division alongside (but never against) the early members of their stand-alone counterparts. Numbers dipped, then rose to 12 for the first time in 1975.
Other sides - either fresh applicants or newly-created reserve XIs - steadily came on board after this, which meant extra divisions were formed in 1976, 1981, 1984, 1988, 1991 and 1992.
We will be posting all league tables from previous seasons on this website as soon as possible, so please watch out for a new link!
All divisions contain 12 sides except for Division Seven, which often contains more (17 this year) to avoid disappointing new applicants. All sides here play the usual 22 fixtures. It is league policy to introduce newly-created or newly-reformed teams in this bottom section.
FBC Manby Bowdler
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