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History
Goring -By-Sea cricket club founded in 1877
Early Days
Goring Cricket Club was formed in 1877 by the Reverend Thorpe of Goring Parish Church. The Club is believed to have played in the fields adjacent to Goring Hall where our third team now play and it was not until 1920 that it permanently located at Goring Street on land owned by a local farmer and used to graze cattle! - now Goring Recreation Ground.
Arthur Somerset Sr
Between 1897 to 1900 Arthur Somerset was Goring by Sea first team captain and later become chairman of the club. As the article to the right notes he also played for Worthing and Broadwater cricket clubs locally. Aurther also played for Sussex CCC and the MCC and has held in high regard by Sussex, more information about Arther can be found on Wikipedia on :- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Somerset_Sr
This article notes of Goring winning the the East Preston league cup one of the earliest know titles for the club. The East Preston cup was a challenge cup played between Goring, East Preston, Angmering, Lyminster, Rustington, Ferring and Clapham with Patching. The cup was required to be won in three successive year for the Club to take ownership of it, with Goring becoming owners of the cup with wins in 1897, 1898 and 1899.
Post WWII
After the war Goring cricket club was revived by the then president of the club Colonel F.C. Stern which can be seen in the newspaper article to the left from the Worthing Herald along with many other cricketing articles from that week.
The club was re-started on the old pitch in the recreation ground where the clubs still plays today.
For more information about Sir Frederick Claude Stern and his time in the Army and work on Highdown gardens please find his Wikipedia:- page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Claude_Stern
The 1990's and Jason Lewry
Worthing born and bred Jason Lewry, joined Goring Cricket Club as a Colt at the age of 12 where he played his junior and club senior cricket until he was picked up by Sussex CCC in 1993.
He made his debut for Sussex in 1994 and was capped in 1996. In 1999 he was selected for England 'A' for the ECB tour of Zimbabwe and South Africa. In 2002, Sussex C.C.C. have awarded him his Benefit Year.
Early 21st Century
In 2008 our First and Second Elevens (XI) achieved Sussex County League status. In 2011 the First Elevens won a promotion to the Second Division playing the highest standard of cricket in the clubs history. Goring's most successful season was in 2013 finishing third in the second division and had a chance of promotion going into the last day of the season.
Goring's 1st team won back to back league titles in 2017 and 2018 winning Sussex Division 4 West and Sussex division 3 West. From 2020 the First XI play in the Sussex County League Division 3 with the Second XI in Division 7 and the Third XI play in Division 11.
Post Covid
Although starting before Covid (All Stars started in 2017 at Goring) after the pandemic the club started to make a huge effort to re-grow the clubs junior section which had gone from running a large number of teams for children in the 90's and 2000's to virtually nothing by the time Covid hit.
With the ECB's lunch of the national All stars and Dynamos programmes for children aged 4 to 11 the club started running both of these programmes to build the section up from the youngest age.
This turned out to be a great success and grew extremely quickly with the club having over 100 children aged between 4 and 11 by 2022. This growth continued and with the increased number of girls joining in 2024 the club ran its first ever girls only Dynamos programme along with its first ever girls only team at under 11 age.
Many of these children stayed with the club as they got older and by 2025 the club was offering junior cricket from the age of 4 through to our under 16 team, meaning for the first time in a long time the club was again offering children of all ages cricket.
The Ground
After many years of discussions with Worthing Brough Council in 2024 the club took over maintenance of the square at the Bull Park (Goring Recreational ground) where the club hosts most of it matches.
A dedicated team of volunteers led by professional groundsman Chris Geere did an amazing job in the clubs first year of running the square in living memory. Iain Haggart (pictured) cutting the square in 2024.
With the success of the first year the clubs hopes to take further control of the ground in the coming years to hopefully ensure that it has as a ground to be proud of for the future.
