Club History

The Lemmings Cricket Club was formed in the summer of 1997 by a group of undergraduates in their final year at The Queen's College, Oxford. It was repeatedly declared that the prospect of entering the real world and never playing cricket together again would simply not do. So, inspired by the myriad of nomadic sides we had played over the years, the club was born.

Of course, the most important matter for any side is its name, and the Lemmings were no different. After several hours of fruitless discussion and suggestion, The Lemmings was settled upon due to our propensity for batting collapses - when one goes, the rest follow.

With the key issue settled, the Lemmings could get down to the business of playing cricket, and the first match was played at Queen's ground in Oxford against the Crocodiles - another Queen's old boys side, and our traditional rivals. We drew that game, and from there the fixture list has grown to about a dozen fixtures against a wide variety of sides. The team has expanded too - in more ways than one - and a select group of non-Queensmen have turned out for the club, but the original ethos of giving everyone a bat or bowl, while playing as decent a standard of cricket as we can lives on happily.

This has led to some exceptional games over the years, with more than our fair share of matches going down to the last over - particularly against the Lord Gnome XI, our established season finale.