A new article from Peter Butler, the Chairman of the Southend Cricket Festival Committee, has been added to our article library. Please click here to view...

Tune in to Southend FM all next week to win tickets for the Southend Cricket Festival. To win, just listen to the Drivetime show between 3pm and 7pm.

Southend FM will be broadcasting daily from The Festival with live updates every 30 minutes throughout play.

The map to the left details the Southend Cricket Festival setup at Garon Park. Please click on the map to enlarge.

As well as the cricket the ECB Roadshow will be present as well as full catering facilities. Essex Autogroup will also be presenting their range of cars.

We have introduced an "Articles" section to the website where you can learn about The Southend Cricket Festival and Garon Park. The articles can be found on the menu on the left.

Since the Essex AutoGroup Southend Cricket Festival was re-launched as a family fun event in 2004 the emphasis has been on local community links. The five day festival is now the most popular in the county for kids of all ages and this will be boosted in 2008 by regular broadcasts on Southend Radio. This new station, which was launched in March this year, broadcasts on 105.1 from studios next to Adventure Island on Southend Seafront. It can be heard throughout south Essex including the southern parts of Chelmsford. There will be live link updates and interviews from Garon Park on the state of play, reports on the Adventure Island under 11 Kwik cricket tournament taking place at the cricket festival, competitions to win free tickets and news of the evening entertainment events taking place in the marquees at the close of play.

Radio broadcasts on BBC Essex (103.5 and 95.3 FM) will continue as normal during the Southend Festival as will BBC Essex’ on-line ball by ball commentary service.

Community groups, schools and charities across Southend are again being given the chance to get their hands on hundreds of free tickets for the 2008 Essex Auto Group Southend Cricket Festival through a joint venture between Southend Borough Council and Essex and Southend Sports Trust. A number of free tickets are available for every day and will be allocated on a first come first served basis.

In 2007 a wide range of local community groups benefited from the free ticket offer, including:

• Avro Day Centre (for adults with learning disabilities)
• Southend Citizens Advice Bureaux
• Southend Huntingdon Disease Association
• Southend YMCA (helps young people move towards independent living)
• Peaceful Place (for members of the community with dementia and their carers)

If you know of a community group, school or charity that would like to take advantage of the free cricket festival ticket offer for 2008, please contact Southend-on-Sea Borough Council on 01702 215119, or email southendcricketfestival@southend.gov.uk.

Kids will be particularly welcome on Thursday and Friday of the Festival when the ECB Cricket Factory will be visiting Garon Park. This provides a platform for 4-18 year olds (including their parents!) to test their cricket skills, batting bowling and fielding. Southend United Community and Educational Trust are hosting a soccer school at the Ground on Sunday morning (August 3). Call Steve Goodsell on 01702 341351 for details.

Last but not least senior citizens have a special day on Thursday July 31 when Carewatch are arranging for the first 100 senior citizens to arrive at the ground to get admission for just ten bob. And if you do not know how much that is you do not qualify for the concession!

Save £££££s by buying advance tickets: Special ticket offers and lower ‘at the gate’ prices for the Essex AutoGroup Southend Cricket Festival are available at the Cliffs Pavilion Box office on 01702 351135 or online at www.cliffspavilion.co.uk. For example save up to £2 (adults) or £1 (kids under 18) on daily tickets; five day Rovers cost just £46 (adult) or £10 (kids); buy a family saver (two adults and two kids) any day for just £29. These prices are ONLY available on advance purchases.

Special Members’ Offer for Southend Festival: members can get £5 (adult) and £3 (kids) off the daily admission price at Garon Park for every guest that they take. Tickets must be purchased in advance from the Ford County Ground, Chelmsford (tel:01245 254010); closing date is Wednesday 23rd July 2008.

This year’s Southend Cricket Festival is again sponsored by Essex AutoGroup and there will be a full programme of entertainment both day and night. Essex play Glamorgan from 30th July to 2nd August and Essex Eagles take on Northants Steelbacks in the Natwest Pro 40 competition on Sunday 3rd August – the Festival Fun Day.

Essex AutoGroup feature Ford, Mazda, Fiat and Kia cars and provide Jaguar, Land-Rover and Volvo service centres in South and East Essex from their distributor and service centres in Southend, Rayleigh, Billericay, Basildon and Thurrock. Call 08448 444315 for details.

Special 2008 festival attractions include:

• Essex AutoGroup car display
• Free community tickets scheme provided by Southend Borough Council and Essex & Southend Sports Trust
• ECB Cricket Factory Roadshow – fun for all the family – on Thursday 31st July and Friday 1st August
• Carewatch Senior Citizens day on Thursday 31st July – the first 100 senior citizens pay just ten bob to get in!
• Beer festival featuring a ‘festival brew’ specially prepared by Shepherd Neame
• Under 11s Kwik Cricket tournament sponsored by Adventure Island
• Southend United Community & Educational Trust Soccer school at Garon Park on Sunday morning 3rd August. Call Steve Goodsell on 01702 341351
• Festival brochure
• An exciting programme of evening events in the marquees.

The Festival Committee has hired top Essex chef Wayne Hawkins with his ‘2 Chefs and a Jeroboam’ to provide a top class catering service. Wayne has a big reputation in the Southend area for high quality catering at outside public events and prestigious private parties. He provide the very best of contemporary cuisine using fresh high quality ingredients. Our aim is to provide high-quality, value for money catering for all visitors to the 2008 festival. Hospitality packages are available from Perry Norton on 01245 252420 or just book a lunch for two in the Festival Restaurant.

The ECB Cricket Factory Roadshow will be visiting the Essex AutoGroup Southend Cricket Festival from 10am to 6pm on Thursday July 31st and Friday 1st August.

Full details can be found here - http://www.ecb.co.uk/development/kids/ecb-cricket-factory/

A busy schedule of matches for Essex teams at Garon Park, Southend, gets into full swing this week when the 2nd XI take on Surrey 2nd XI in a four-day match from Tuesday (April 22).

Hard on the heels of the opening Essex representative fixture of the season – which ended in a narrow defeat for Essex women against their Middlesex counterparts on Saturday – an experienced second team will get their Second Eleven Championship campaign underway at the County’s newest first-class venue.

Essex 2nd XI team to play Surrey 2nd XI at Garon Park in the Second Eleven Championship, Tuesday April 22 to Friday April 25 (11.00am start each day)

• Varun Chopra
• Grant Flower
• Chris Marsden (Trialist)
• Tim Phillips
• Jono McLean (Trialist)
• Alex Roberts (Trialist)
• Alan Ison (Academy)
• Mervyn Westfield
• Tony Palladino
• Maurice Chambers
• Harry Beddows (Academy – Wicketkeeper)
• Theeban Tavarasa (Development Squad)

Updates over the four days of this week’s 2nd XI match will appear in the Essex CCC Diary section of the Essex CCC website at www.essexcricket.org.uk. Admission is free.

Garon Park fixtures - 2008

• Saturday April 19 – Essex women v Middlesex women (midday)
• Tuesday April 22 to Friday April 25 – Essex 2nd XI v Surrey 2nd XI (11.00am)
• Saturday April 26 – Essex U-13 girls v Middlesex U-13 girls (2pm)
• Saturday May 3 – Essex U-15 girls v Surrey U-15 girls (2pm)
• Wednesday May 7 to Friday May 9 – Essex 2nd and Kent 2nd XI v Middlesex 2nd XI (11.00am)
• Saturday May 17 – Essex U-13 girls v Kent U-13 girls (2pm)
• Sunday May 18 – Essex Academy v Middlesex Academy (11.00am)
• Saturday May 24 – Essex U-15 girls v Sussex U-15 girls (2pm)
• Monday May 26 – Essex U-13 girls v Surrey U-13 girls (2pm)
• Wednesday May 28 – Essex U-11s v Hertfordshire U-11s (1pm)
• Friday May 30 – Essex U-10s v Norfolk U-10s (1pm)
• Saturday May 31 – Essex Under-17 girls v Middlesex (1pm)
• Wednesday June 4 – Kwik Cricket Festival (midday)
• Saturday June 7 – Essex U-13 girls v Sussex U-13 girls (2pm)
• Saturday June 14 – Essex U-15 girls v Middlesex U-15 girls (2pm)
• Saturday June 21 – Essex U-17 girls v Hertfordshire U-17 girls (1pm)
• Saturday June 28 – Essex U-17 girls v Sussex U-17 girls (1pm)
• Sunday June 29 – Essex 2nd XI v Regional U-17s (11.00am)
• Saturday July 5 – Essex U-15 girls v Hertfordshire U-15 girls (2pm)
• Monday July 7 to Friday July 11 – Shoeburyness Schools Finals (3pm-6pm)
• Sunday July 13 – Essex U-11 v Surrey U-11 (1pm)
• Wednesday July 30 to Saturday August 2 – Essex 1st XI v Glamorgan 1st XI (11.00am)
• Sunday August 3 – Essex Eagles v Northants Steelbacks (1.45pm)
• Saturday August 23 – Essex U-15 girls v Cambridgeshire (2pm)

Changes and additions to these fixtures will appear on the official Southend Cricket Festival website at www.southendcricketfestival.org.uk

More information on the 2008 Essex Autogroup Southend Cricket Festival can be found on the official Essex CCC website at www.essexcricket.org.uk

Tickets prices for the 2008 Essex Auto Group Southend Cricket Festival have been announced. Advance purchase tickets remain unchanged from 2007. Full details can be found here.

The flyer for the Essex Auto Group Southend Cricket Festival has gone to print. The flyer will be distributed throughout the area and will have details on The Festival, ticket prices and corporate hospitality.

You can download the flyer (2.3Mb) here.

When the Southend Cricket Festival was relaunched four years ago our aim was to encourage more families, and in particular kids to follow cricket and support our county cricket club. This year more kids attended the Garon Park Festival than any other Essex home ground for equivalent games and the Adventure Island Kwik Cricket under 11 tournament, held for the first time in 2007 during the festival, was a resounding success; eight local clubs took part and Benfleet CC beat Rayleigh CC in an exciting final. In addition the free community tickets programme organised jointly by Southend Borough Council and Essex & Southend Sports Trust distributed over 750 free festival tickets to 38 different schools, churches, youth and sports clubs and charities.

We hope to build on this in 2008 by giving our support in the Southend area to the ECB's Chance to Shine initiative which with government backing aims to establish high quality, sustainable cricket programmes in a third of all UK state schools by 2015.

The Cricketing Centre of Excellence at Garon Park expects to play a full part in this and our development programme for next season includes plans to install outdoor nets at the venue which will be made available to local schools as part of the Chance to Shine initiative. It is also hoped some inter-schools matches will be played at the venue.

The County Cricket festival had a difficult year but more or less broke even financially. During the winter we are planning a number of improvements to the venue in response to constructive comments from members and we are also planning a special members offer for 2008. Full details will be included with our March mailing.

The 2008 festival will be a week earlier than this year starting on Wednesday 30th July with a four day game against Glamorgan followed by a 40 over game against Northants on Sunday 3rd August – so book your holidays now!