WELLINGTON Cricket Club’s 1st XI, who retained their West of England Premier League Somerset Division status at the end of the 2016 season, have received their fixtures for next season, writes David Derrick

The 2017 season, which will be Wellington’s fifth successive one at Premier League level, will run from Saturday 6th May until Saturday 2nd September inclusive and will see the season begin at home to relegated side Weston Super Mare, who played in the Premier Two Bristol and Somerset division in 2016, and end with a visit to Wembdon who are moving to a brand new two pitch facility during the close season.

Games with the two sides promoted from the Somerset League – Temple Cloud and Minehead – will see the Red and Blacks travel to both in June before receiving them both in August.

Overall this has the look of a good fixture list for the side as the two Bank Holiday weekends see a visit no further than Bridgwater to play their 2nd XI on the Whit weekend at the end of May and the visit of Minehead in August sees travel be the responsibility of the West Somerset based side.

With the five games set for August and September starting at 12.30pm due to daylight considerations visits to North Petherton, Chard and Wembdon present travel on a local basis; there are no long cross-county journeys to make at this point in the season.

The overall list looks like this: May 6 Weston Super Mare (h); May 13 – Staplegrove (a); May 20 – North Perrott (h); May 27 – Bridgwater 2 (a); June 3 North Petherton (h); June 10 Temple Cloud (a); June 17 Chard (h); June 24 Minehead (a); July 1 – Wembdon (h); July 8 – Weston Super Mare (a); July 15 – Staplegrove (h); July 22 – North Perrott (a); July 29 – Bridgwater 2 (h); August 5 – North Petherton (a); August 12 – Temple Cloud (h); August 19 – Chard (a); August 26 – Minehead (h); September 2 – Wembdon (a).

The Somerset League are working on their divisional set ups for 2017 at this time and this detail plus fixtures are expected soon – Wellington 2nd XI will be playing in Division Four and Wellington 3rd XI will be playing in Division Seven South following both finishing as runners up in 2016.