Oswestry Cricket Club: 10 Mother-Daughter Pairs in Women’s Section

The acronym Wags entered popular consciousness in 2006 during England’s football World Cup campaign in Baden-Baden, where Victoria Beckham, Cheryl Tweedy and others became a tabloid obsession over matching outfits and nightclub antics.

Twenty years later, a different set of Wags is making waves at Oswestry Cricket Club on the north Shropshire-Wales border, where the thriving Women and Girls section (WaGs) boasts 10 mother-daughter pairs who have played competitive cricket together, ranging in age from 12 to 67.

The oldest member, Jools Payne, team manager and founding player, said: “We embrace the Wags moniker. And we’re incredibly proud of our mother and daughter pairs, we may even explore if it is worthy of the Guinness Book of Records.”

Jools’s eldest daughter, Naomi, is the driving force behind the women’s section, established in 2018 when she organized a women’s softball competition, persuading her mother and younger sister Holly to join.

Naomi recruited enough players to field a proper women’s team a year later, and the club now has 33 players on its books, competing in hard-ball and softball tournaments indoors and out, with two-thirds of its youngsters from the state sector.

The team are the reigning champions of the top Shropshire recreational hardball league for 2024 and 2025.

“We play competitively but we have a hoot on the field as well,” Jools said. “Some mums started playing first and brought their daughters along, sometimes it was the other way round.”

“We have a very nurturing side too,” she added. “It might have something to do with the mother-daughter dynamic but also that we have a few teachers on board, including our vice-captain, Lisa Bladen, who is head of girls’ PE at the local state school. It’s a bit like if you’ve ever been on a PTA and get a group of individuals who just all gel – wonderful things happen.”

“The beautiful thing about cricket is that you have that chance to shine as an individual but within a team setting. There are no egos at all. The young girls all get on like a house of fire and the older ones like a bit of gin and prosecco bonding,” Jools said.

Challenges include team selection because if a mother goes on holiday, her daughter often follows, but Jools is always available. “I am the most inept player on the field. I can’t bend and I can’t throw. I’ve got rheumatoid arthritis and a wonky right hand. I’m very good at shouting and clapping though.”

This year’s coach is Jools’s husband, Ian, an all-rounder for Surrey and Gloucestershire from 1977 to 1986. “I said to him: ‘Come on, no more lie-ins on a Sunday morning.’ It is such a great resource having an ex-pro with all that technical expertise and cricket nous, helping the girls understand how to rotate the strike, nurdle the ball down there. He brings a cricketing brain to the party.”

A 2022 survey by Women in Sport found that one million teenage girls who considered themselves sporty in primary school disengaged once adolescence hit.

Jools said this drop-off in participation when periods and body consciousness arise is why she is such an enthusiast. “We know that where mums either play or encourage the playing of sport, whatever it may be, their daughters are likely to follow a path into active participation. I listened to a fascinating Mumsnet webinar a couple of years ago on just that issue and determined then that we would do what we could to nurture our mums and their daughters into the game.”

“This is where playing within the sisterhood comes in. There is something about being in that nurturing female-only environment that can help you through. We have a Wags dedicated training night, play with women and against women – though some of the good cricketers play mixed cricket with school or club third or fourth XIs.”

“Also, a big up to whoever invented period pants. Who wants to wear whites if you’ve got your period? And to Alex Hartley for mentioning her period on TMS, good for her.”

The Oswestry Wags regularly attend England women’s matches at Edgbaston, including the Women’s T20 World Cup opener on 12 June, where they will sit dressed as lifeguards in yellow T-shirts and red shorts in the Hollies Stand.

They will hold a party on 5 July for the T20 World Cup final, hosting a softball festival in the morning and setting up a television for the 2:30 p.m. start. The Wags train on Tuesday nights from 6-8 p.m. in summer, and Naomi aims to start an under-12s team. “The more the merrier,” Jools said. “And you don’t have to bring your mum.”