Progress in Poland

Despite losing their first two 'international' indoor cricket matches against Berlin CC on Saturday 14 February, Polonia CC?s fledgling players and their many supporters enjoyed themselves immensely and are already looking forward to their other forthcoming international fixtures with clubs from the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Slovenia. The matches against Berlin were attended by 3 Polish newspapers, and Polish national television has subsequently shown a 2 ½ minute report about cricket in Poland during the sports section of the news ? groundbreaking stuff, as Simon Haines, founding member of Polonia CC says: "I've been here four years and I have never even seen cricket mentioned in sports programming, let alone on the news.?

Playing numbers, meanwhile, continue to increase. A local English language school has set up a childrens' Kwik Cricket club using a set provided by the European Development Program. They recently had their first fun game, with around ten children between 8 and 12 playing, and are hoping for more young cricketers when the weather starts to get better. And as if this weren?t enough, as a result of an introductory coaching course recently run by ICC European Development Officer Philip Hudson (and a certain amount of gentle persuasion by Simon!), PWSZ, a college with 4000 students, will be setting up its own cricket club for the teachers and students there in the next week or so.

All three clubs (Polonia, PWSZ, and the Kwik Cricket club) will become members of a new Polish Cricket Association, which Simon, Magda Pospieszna (a fellow founder member of Polonia CC), and two other cricket enthusiasts, Donata Krzyszczyk and Marcin Pospieszny have set up. Their website http://www.cricket.pl/ is already up and running, with information about all three clubs and cricket in general to stimulate further interest in cricket and encourage new clubs to form. The new association will also select players for tournaments like the ECC Representative Championships.