ABOUT CLUB CRICKET DE L'OUST
Club Cricket de l'Oust is based in Morbihan in southern Brittany and we play our home games at the Stade Louis Chauveau in Josselin in central Morbihan. Follow this link to the ViaMichelin website to find maps and route planners.
Josselin is about 50 kms from the major town of Vannes and a drive of about 90 minutes from the channel port of St Malo ( served by Brittany Ferries), the airport at Dinard (served by Ryanair), and about 45 minutes from Rennes which has regular Flybe flights from the UK: all this make it an ideal destination for anyone wanting to take a short break in this beautiful part of France.
We are always pleased to host touring teams from other regions in France and from overseas and can assure everyone of a warm welcome. For any visiting teams who would like to do more than just play cricket, there are some excellent golf courses in Brittany as well as beautiful countryside and coast and numerous picturesque towns and villages such as Josselin and Malestroit, all within easy reach.
We are always looking to recruit new members- men and women of all ages and abilities, and also helpers and supporters We are also happy to offer demonstrations and cricket instruction by our qualified instructors to schools in NW France. So, if you are a team looking to play in Brittany, someone who lives in Brittany and would like to play or support cricket, or if you are from a school and would like your pupils to learn something about this game then click here to go to our Contact Us page. Just fill in and send the form and we'll get back to you in a day or two.
Josselin is about 50 kms from the major town of Vannes and a drive of about 90 minutes from the channel port of St Malo ( served by Brittany Ferries), the airport at Dinard (served by Ryanair), and about 45 minutes from Rennes which has regular Flybe flights from the UK: all this make it an ideal destination for anyone wanting to take a short break in this beautiful part of France.
We are always pleased to host touring teams from other regions in France and from overseas and can assure everyone of a warm welcome. For any visiting teams who would like to do more than just play cricket, there are some excellent golf courses in Brittany as well as beautiful countryside and coast and numerous picturesque towns and villages such as Josselin and Malestroit, all within easy reach.
We are always looking to recruit new members- men and women of all ages and abilities, and also helpers and supporters We are also happy to offer demonstrations and cricket instruction by our qualified instructors to schools in NW France. So, if you are a team looking to play in Brittany, someone who lives in Brittany and would like to play or support cricket, or if you are from a school and would like your pupils to learn something about this game then click here to go to our Contact Us page. Just fill in and send the form and we'll get back to you in a day or two.
SOME CLUB HISTORY
Like so many other sports clubs, Club Cricket de l’Oust (or Josselin Cricket Club as it was first named) started life in a bar late one Saturday night, when I asked Jack “Does anyone round here play cricket?”.
“No” he replied “but I’ll give it a go”.
This was in April 2005. The obvious place to seek other players (apart from bars) was the AngloInfo forum, and within 2 months we had got in contact with enough players to challenge des Ormes CC to a match. Des Ormes had, until then, been the only cricket team in Brittany. There are based at the les Ormes camping complex about 8km south of Dol-de-Bretagne; formed in 1996 they play hosts to visiting British teams virtually every week-end from May through to the end of September.
Needless to say, we came a distant second but we now had a taste for it, and eagerly looked forward to our second game........against des Ormes. 2nd again, but we did amass over 200 runs.
By chance, Radio 4 were doing a broadcast from Brittany in the wake of what had been billed as anti-British activity in the area, and I was asked to fill in one of the sports spots. Through this we managed to contact another club – le Moulin CC, based at Fontaine Couverte in southern Mayenne.
The first victory is always the sweetest!
Lee, one of our players, had brought a French friend (Frank) along to our des Ormes game and as we were one short, Frank had been press-ganged into play. This high-lighted one of the difficulties of playing cricket in France. Frank went into bat, and the batsman at the other end hit the ball towards mid-wicket and called “Wait”. Frank, of course, heard this as a (Breton) “Oui!” and set off for a run, with the inevitable result.
Undeterred, Lee and Frank were practicing one evening in the park at Gourin, when a van pulled up and the driver got out.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
Frank explained a little about cricket.
“Oh, do you want us to build you a pitch?”.
Yes, the driver was from the Mairie at Gourin, and Gourin (now Central Brittany) Cricket Club was born.
I was still looking to find a home venue for us in the Josselin area. I’d had a meeting at the Mairie, but they were worried about us using the football pitch at the Stade in case the horses disturbed the underground watering sprinklers. In 2006 we signed an agreement with the Mairie at Quily, just south-east of Ploermel, to play on their (unused) football pitch. This was an extremely pleasant location, but the trouble was that the Breton wild-life of the burrowing persuasion obviously thought so too! We had several games there, playing host to teams from England whom we had enticed across the channel, as well as local teams. We’d lost some players when de l’Oust and Gourin went their separate ways, but at least we had someone else to play now, and there was a steady trickle of new players to keep us ticking over.
Late in 2006 I was offered a meeting with the Maire at Sérent, with a view to moving and using the football stadium there. This had numerous advantages – the Mairie would cut the grass, there was a gym for indoor nets, there were toilet and changing facilities, and there were no little furry animals.
So in 2007, we moved to the Stade Pierre Guého in Sérent where we played until 2014.
The type of grass in the stade at Sérent requires copious amounts of sand to be scattered upon it during June, with the result that several matches were more akin to beach cricket than anything else. So we decided to return to Josselin for the 2015 season. Hopefully this will give us a better playing surface, and there will be no need to bring a bucket and spade to the matches.
We shall see...
“No” he replied “but I’ll give it a go”.
This was in April 2005. The obvious place to seek other players (apart from bars) was the AngloInfo forum, and within 2 months we had got in contact with enough players to challenge des Ormes CC to a match. Des Ormes had, until then, been the only cricket team in Brittany. There are based at the les Ormes camping complex about 8km south of Dol-de-Bretagne; formed in 1996 they play hosts to visiting British teams virtually every week-end from May through to the end of September.
Needless to say, we came a distant second but we now had a taste for it, and eagerly looked forward to our second game........against des Ormes. 2nd again, but we did amass over 200 runs.
By chance, Radio 4 were doing a broadcast from Brittany in the wake of what had been billed as anti-British activity in the area, and I was asked to fill in one of the sports spots. Through this we managed to contact another club – le Moulin CC, based at Fontaine Couverte in southern Mayenne.
The first victory is always the sweetest!
Lee, one of our players, had brought a French friend (Frank) along to our des Ormes game and as we were one short, Frank had been press-ganged into play. This high-lighted one of the difficulties of playing cricket in France. Frank went into bat, and the batsman at the other end hit the ball towards mid-wicket and called “Wait”. Frank, of course, heard this as a (Breton) “Oui!” and set off for a run, with the inevitable result.
Undeterred, Lee and Frank were practicing one evening in the park at Gourin, when a van pulled up and the driver got out.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
Frank explained a little about cricket.
“Oh, do you want us to build you a pitch?”.
Yes, the driver was from the Mairie at Gourin, and Gourin (now Central Brittany) Cricket Club was born.
I was still looking to find a home venue for us in the Josselin area. I’d had a meeting at the Mairie, but they were worried about us using the football pitch at the Stade in case the horses disturbed the underground watering sprinklers. In 2006 we signed an agreement with the Mairie at Quily, just south-east of Ploermel, to play on their (unused) football pitch. This was an extremely pleasant location, but the trouble was that the Breton wild-life of the burrowing persuasion obviously thought so too! We had several games there, playing host to teams from England whom we had enticed across the channel, as well as local teams. We’d lost some players when de l’Oust and Gourin went their separate ways, but at least we had someone else to play now, and there was a steady trickle of new players to keep us ticking over.
Late in 2006 I was offered a meeting with the Maire at Sérent, with a view to moving and using the football stadium there. This had numerous advantages – the Mairie would cut the grass, there was a gym for indoor nets, there were toilet and changing facilities, and there were no little furry animals.
So in 2007, we moved to the Stade Pierre Guého in Sérent where we played until 2014.
The type of grass in the stade at Sérent requires copious amounts of sand to be scattered upon it during June, with the result that several matches were more akin to beach cricket than anything else. So we decided to return to Josselin for the 2015 season. Hopefully this will give us a better playing surface, and there will be no need to bring a bucket and spade to the matches.
We shall see...