HISTORICAL "JUNIOR" LEAGUE TABLES - COMING SOON

In early January, an email pinged into my inbox from former Cricket Leinster President, and renowned historian Jim Bennett. Jim was researching the history of The Hills CC, and specifically the Open Competitions "junior" league tables going back to 1981. Unfortunately, these had not been recorded on the Cricket Leinster website, and Jim needed a few holes to be filled.

With the help of Eddie Lewis, the holes were filled, and Jim was able to go back to his research. But there remained a gap on the Cricket Leinster website, and so the task began of digitising forty two years of Open Competitions league tables, which will appear on the website over the next few days.

The advantage of having all those league table digitised is that we can easily look at how the 234 teams to have played cricket in the province since 1980 have fared. The table below shows every team, the number of seasons they have played league cricket, the best position they achieved, the worst position they achieved and a list of their league titles.

The table just looks at the main Open Competition (or it's "Senior Branch" and "Junior Branch" precursors) leagues (which excludes T20 leagues, or league cups). Where teams have changed their name (such as CYM to Terenure, or Clonee to Castleknock), each name has it's own line, but the best and worst are treated as if there was one name. Where clubs have merged (such as Cabinteely/Dundrum, North Wicklow/Avondale, Knockbrack/Ringcommons), they are treated as a new club, with different highs and lows for each club.

The data also enables us to look at the ups and downs of clubs over a long period of time with this heat map. The darker the green, the closer the team is to its highest ever position. With this we can easily see how certain clubs have waxed and waned.

Look at the rise of North County from their creation in 1986 to their dominant spell in the mid noughts; the decline of Old Belvedere from being one of Leinster's strongest clubs in the early 1990s to their closure in 2012; the dominance of Merrion, recovering from the depths of the early 90s to a dominant club in the 21st century; and the emergence of Adamstown as a growing force (since 2021, their 6ths and 7ths became the strongest 6ths and 7ths in the league, something only experienced by Leinster and Merrion over the last 25 years.

The full table is best viewed as a pdf by clicking on the image below. Zoom in as necessary.