By the time Ickenham finally stepped into the Home Counties Premier League, it felt less like a breakthrough and more like inevitability. Thirty years is a long time to wait. Longer still when you’ve been knocking at the door.
“We last won the Thames Valley in 1995,” Elliot Evans recalls. “So in terms of getting back to the Prem, it’s been a while. We’ve been knocking on the door for a few years. To finally be there feels like we deserve it after all that time.”
Evans speaks with the easy familiarity of someone who has grown up inside the club’s fabric. For him, leadership wasn’t ever imposed, but grown from his first steps on the field.
“I’ve been at the club through Juniors, 5th XI, 4th XI, and all the way into the firsts, then captain. It’s been a long journey. I probably made plenty of mistakes early on, I was young and naive, but I’ve always enjoyed it.”
That journey mirrors the club’s own. A decade ago, Ickenham were drifting in Division Three of the Middlesex Leagues. Relegations, rebuilding, a group of teenagers thrown into men’s cricket and told to grow quickly.
“There were a few of us who came into the side at sixteen or seventeen. We became the new core. The club backed us. And slowly it changed.”
Now, they arrive in the Home Counties Premier League with clarity about who they are and how they want to play. Evans describes it simply: positive cricket, defined principles, no fear of risk.
“We’ve got a way of playing. We’ve had KPIs and a style for years. That doesn’t change. We’re always looking to win. I’m not hugely in favour of draws. Sometimes you’ve got to gamble.”
That mindset helped deliver a season of eleven wins from eighteen on the way up. No draws. No hesitation. Just forward momentum.
But Evans knows the step up will demand more than optimism. He says it requires patience, intelligence and humility.
“In the Premier League, you’re not going to get as many bad balls. If you want to face more bad balls, you have to bat longer to earn them. That’s a mindset shift for us.”
The bowling, too, must evolve.
“We’ve played on a small ground for years, if you just run up and bowl, you go for six. So we’ve learned to be intelligent. But at this level, you need to be even smarter.”
It’s a thoughtful way of seeing cricket: part strategy, part culture, part study of opposition. Evans even borrows from football.
“The higher you go, the more you have to respect the opposition. You need to understand who you’re batting against, who you’re bowling at, and what the plans are.”
Yet for all the tactical detail, the heart of Ickenham lies elsewhere. In the atmosphere. In the togetherness. In a club that behaves more like a family than a programme.
“We’re very lucky. A lot of us live locally. After training we stay and have a bit of food together. Girlfriends get on. Juniors come down to watch. The community comes to games. That unity off the field transpires on it.”
Home matches carry a particular charm. Supporters lining the boundary. Ex-players in deckchairs from noon to close. Post-match conversations in the bar that last longer than the cricket itself.
“When teams finish early, they don’t just go home. They stay and support the others. That’s important to me. They’re part of the club.”
There is ambition too. Evans takes inspiration from clubs who have risen, fallen, and risen again.
“I take massive inspiration from Stoke Green and Gerrards Cross. They’ve been up there. If we can emulate that, it would be amazing.”
This year, there are signings to come, an overseas player close to completion, young talent emerging through the system. But Evans is careful: recruitment must add, not disrupt.
“For me, they have to be better than what we’ve got. It’s not worth upsetting the group otherwise.”
It is a measured outlook. No grand declarations. No inflated promises. Just a sense of readiness built slowly, deliberately, and together.
“We’re not there to make up numbers. We’re here to win a lot of games. But we also want to enjoy it. It’s recreational cricket. It’s not life and death.”
After thirty years away, Ickenham are back where they believe they belong. Not as tourists. Not as hopefuls. But as a club that has grown its identity, built its culture, and earned its place.
Now comes the next challenge: staying there.
