President’s Blog

SEASON 2026 ROUND-UP

The last year started with a great deal of organisational change, followed in the cricket season by great success.

The first change was the appointment of Neil Leitch as Club President, following on from Rawdon Hesketh, who was Grange’s longest serving President for over a century. This was a relatively simple change to make as Neil had been a Vice-President for several years.

The other change proved to be far harder to accomplish. John Blain was also the longest in his role for over a century, in his case Director of Cricket. He resigned to take up a role with Edinburgh Academy, leaving in October. Despite a worldwide search, this role proved very hard to replace. It was March before Craig Yelverton was appointed, ironically from Royal High Corstorphine, just a few miles up the road. Craig quickly made the job his own and contributed greatly to the continuing success of our large junior section.

Following Craig’s appointment, the cricket season followed quickly on. Here is a reminder of where the senior teams finished.
 
Men’s 1st XI won the Eastern Premier League and shared the award of champion Scottish club with Clydesdale.
 
Men’s 2nd XI finished 7th in the East of Scotland Championship, same position as previous season.
 
Men’s 3rd XI finished 2nd in East of Scotland League Division 4, thereby winning promotion.
 
Men’s 4th XI won East of Scotland Division 8, winning all of their games. This was the first time a Grange side had ever finished a league season with a 100% record & was their second promoted season in a row.
 
Grange Women’s XI won the Cricket Scotland Women’s Premier League 30, a great achievement by what is a very young team.

This was the first time that three Grange senior sides had won their respective leagues since 2003.

 
Junior Stags – Our various sides did not win silverware in any cup competition, but had two very successful tours – to Northern Ireland & North of England.
 
 
To our main Sponsors – Murray Capital, Cold Town Beer, Appointedd and Rathbones.  Thank you for your continued support.  All in their third year.  In addition, very much due to the efforts of Jessica Bennet, a programme of Player Sponsorship was introduced. Thanks to them all was given at a vibrant Sponsors Day, where attendees were able to watch the Men’s 1st XI beat Heriot’s in the critical league win of the season.
 
The success of the Men’s 1st XI was very much aided by the efforts of our guest players from Redlands CC, Brisbane – Liam Smith & James Pullar. Their contribution was needed, as our four Scotland senior players (Jasper Davidson, Owen Gould, Jack Jarvis & Finlay McCreath) were frequently away playing for their country. James’ haul of 59 1st XI wickets was the highest since 2003.
 
My thanks to everyone (mentioning no names) who contribute a huge amount of time and energy to the running of the Club; scorers, umpires, coaches, team captains, parents, ground-staff and the committees (Junior, Senior and General).
 

Neil Leitch
(Club President)