New Deal Signed For Popular Summer Cricket Festival

This year’s edition takes place in June and will feature Derbyshire against Lancashire in Division Two of the County Championship, The Blaze against Yorkshire Women in League One of the Metro Bank Women’s One-Day Cup, Derbyshire Falcons Women against Gloucestershire Women in League Two of the Women’s Vitality Blast and Derbyshire Falcons against Yorkshire in the North Group of the Vitality Blast.

Additionally, away from the festival, Queen’s Park will also stage Notts Outlaws against Northamptonshire Steelbacks in Group A of the Metro Bank One-Day Cup in August, as well as the Metro Bank Women’s One-Day Cup League One fixture between The Blaze and Essex Women in September. With these extra games, Queen’s Park is showing that it is more than capable of hosting further matches at the highest level of the domestic game, as well as continuing to be the permanent ground for Chesterfield Cricket Club in the Premier Division of the Derbyshire County Cricket League. It’s a massive achievement that both the club and venue can reap massive benefits from.

Speaking exclusively to The Peakite, Chesterfield Cricket Club’s chairman Nigel Mallender was absolutely delighted with the recent announcement:

“I think, firstly, it’s a great vote of confidence in the product we put together at Queen’s Park in Chesterfield. It’s brilliant; it’s a great shot in the arm for the town and for the amount of people that come into the town every year for the festival…it’s absolutely brilliant. We’re so, so pleased to keep bringing top level cricket to Chesterfield. It’s vitally important. There’s clearly a demand for it too, no doubt about it. The spectators love coming to Chesterfield. They love the out ground nature of Queen’s Park. The demand is very much there. It’s great to have this long-term contract in place, that sees first-class cricket being played at Queen’s Park for the next six years including this year of course.”

When asked what the special appeal is of Queen’s Park and why the festival means so much to people year after year, Nigel stated that the ground offers things that few bigger grounds can provide:

“When you go to Headingley and Trent Bridge and all the county grounds, there’s not the same atmosphere there. The spectators and the members are a lot closer to the action when it’s at Queen’s Park. You’ve got that more homely feel because, generally speaking, it’s club members at Queen’s Park that are putting on the tea bar. You’ve got an independent brewery that are putting on the beer tent over on the grass bank. It feels much more of a homely atmosphere. People can bring their own deckchairs along and sit on the grass bank. I think all of that just adds to the massive attraction of Queen’s Park. It’s just a walk across the bridge. They can walk from the train station through town and across the bridge to the cricket ground. It’s got so much going for it. There’s so much history as well.”

“We had some honours boards put up at the start of last year on the away stairwell as you walk up towards the away changing room. I was just looking at it again the other day. It’s captivating when you see some of the names on that board; going back many, many decades to the likes of Don Bradman and into the 60s and seeing Sir Garfield Sobers, Fred Trueman and Geoff Boycott. Through to the modern era and you’ve got Sachin Tendulkar, Adam Gilchrist, Ricky Ponting, Brian Lara and Joe Root who have all scored runs and taken wickets on Queen’s Park. You get that feel of history and heritage when you look out at Queen’s Park with all these professional teams playing there. So we’re delighted as a club and as a town, it’s absolutely brilliant. Long may it continue!”

It’s worth noting that some may see part of the Chesterfield Festival of Cricket’s appeal, as an event that is the antithesis of the modern day game hidden behind endless subscriptions and pay-per-view channels.

Nigel was keen to stress the importance of Chesterfield Cricket Club’s role in making the festival so popular in the first place, as well as playing a vital part in keeping the summer event at Queen’s Park for at least another half a decade:

“Obviously, the press release has come out and there’s a big mention there of the negotiation between Derbyshire County Cricket Club and Chesterfield Borough Council. We worked very closely with both organisations. It’s a real close partnership. It’s a joint effort in terms of bringing those matches to Chesterfield. But what might be the bit that creeps under the radar quite often, is the part that Chesterfield Cricket Club play in actually bringing the festival to Chesterfield and to Queen’s Park, and the significant part that we play in making the festival a success. It is important to know that without a successful Chesterfield Cricket Club on and off the field, I doubt very much that there would be a festival at Queen’s Park.”

“It was our initiative to bring The Blaze to Chesterfield Cricket Club about three or four years ago - we led on that. We’re the ones that have actually led on so many of the new initiatives that have been put in place at Queen’s Park over the last few years. To give you some examples, we had a really dry summer last year. Like most grounds across the country, it couldn’t get enough water to the cricket square. The cricket club led two years previously on putting in a new irrigation system at great expense. Without that irrigation system in place last summer, we would not have been able to host those professional games at the festival. So it was absolutely vital that this was put in place. We’ve completely refurbished the main score box at Queen’s Park. We’ve had a new electric score box put in place. Over the winter, we’ve led on new side screens being put in place at the lake end of the ground in conjunction with Chesterfield Borough Council. Just this week, I’ve had some investment signed off that’s going to allow us to put new modern pitch covers in place. This is all really, really important. These improvements are vital in terms of us continuing to be able to attract Derbyshire and these professional teams to Queen’s Park and Chesterfield.”

This year’s edition of the festival once again features Derbyshire Falcons Women and The Blaze as well as Derbyshire’s men’s sides across the red ball and white ball format. It highlights the fast growth of the women’s game in England and this is something Nigel is clearly very proud of and enthusiastic about. Inclusivity helps the festival appeal to more people, drive up attendances and builds a platform for a local legacy:

“Women’s cricket is the fastest growing aspect of the game right now. It’s been such a great addition for us to welcome The Blaze to Chesterfield each summer and, of course, Derbyshire Women too. It’s great, it’s growing and long may that continue too.”

The festival also works in advertising Chesterfield Cricket Club itself, who play all summer long at the beloved venue where the Crooked Spire can be seen in the distance and the nostalgic sound of the nearby miniature train (superbly known as Puffin’ Billy) is never far from being heard. It’s not just a cricket venue. It’s a real asset to the town of Chesterfield as a whole and blends the traditional game with the modern day sport beautifully. As Nigel emphasises, the work that goes towards running a Derbyshire County Cricket League level side is never-ending but immensely rewarding. Currently, after three games of their 2026 league campaign, Chesterfield sit in third position in the Premier Division of the DCCL with two victories and a tied match to their name. The chairman is very confident of a bright season ahead on and off the pitch:

“We’ve had a really good start. I often get those comments over the off season where people say ‘It must be nice to have downtime and a few quiet months.’ But, actually, it’s nothing further from the truth! They’re actually the busiest months in many respects. We’ve strengthened the squad. Naturally, we’ve retained the services of Ben Slater who is Chesterfield born and bred. He’s a key part of the club as is his family. So it’s always great to see Ben Slater back in the Chesterfield ranks around his Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club commitments. We’ve re-signed our Sri Lankan overseas player, Kemira Wijenayake. He’s back for his third season. He is, without question, the best overseas cricketer that Chesterfield Cricket Club has ever had. On and off the field, the lad has made such an incredible impact. Not only is he a wonderful cricketer, but he’s really got the juniors and the local community engaged with the coaching that he does down at Queen’s Park. He’s brought a lot of new players in from, perhaps, some of the under-privileged areas of Chesterfield. That’s great to see. He’s always got a permanent smile on his face as well, which is wonderful too.”

“We’ve brought in a couple of new players too; Matt Stewart, who was on the academy at Derbyshire; Hassnain Akhtar, who just left the academy at the back end of last season. Our second county professional is Ben Martindale, who is on the staff at Notts. We’ve got a real good, competitive squad. That obviously filters down through the second team, the third team and into our pathway too. A key priority for Chesterfield Cricket Club is our pathway from juniors into seniors. That’s an absolute no-brainer as far as I’m concerned. We need to keep bringing through our own youngsters. We give them the necessary coaching so that they can improve and then give them the opportunity to thrive within our senior team.”

This year has also seen Chesterfield Cricket Club launch its first ever competitive women’s team. Nigel is delighted with how things have begun for them:

“When I took this role on as chair of this club back in 2022, it was actually a real driver for me to launch a women’s team. Chesterfield Cricket have supported the women’s game right the way back to the 1970s. We hosted a Women’s World Cup match at Queen’s Park. Our history in supporting women’s cricket probably goes further back than most clubs. But, for whatever reason, it took us a while to actually launch our own team. We’ve had women and girls play in our junior teams before and into our senior teams, but never as a dedicated section previously. Last winter, it just felt like the right time, we bit the bullet and launched a women’s and girls team. There are two separate teams but they both train together on Wednesday evenings at Queen’s Park, and it’s grown and grown grown. We’ve now got 25 to 30 regular members of the women’s and girls section. They were entering softball tournaments last year and we would go around the county and spend Sunday mornings and afternoons playing various games.”

“We decided over the winter that, because of the progress that the women and girls had made and many of them had never played before as well, that we would launch a league team. So we’ve entered a team into the East Midlands Women’s Cricket League. They played their first game on Sunday where we were away at Youlgreave and won, which was brilliant, as they were an experienced team. We narrowly lost our second game. I do believe that in a couple of months time if we played that game again, we probably would have got over the line. So it’s great to see, and I think the bit that I’m so excited about, is that the women and the girls absolutely love it. They’re so driven to improve. They love playing the game. They’re enjoying each other’s successes. From a club point of view, they just bring so much. They’ve become a fundamental part of Chesterfield Cricket Club…we are absolutely committed to pushing women’s cricket forwards and continuing to promote it.”

There’s perhaps one word that epitomises why Queen’s Park is doing such a great job for local and domestic cricket for all ages: community. Community appears to be at the heart of every decision that is made. This is what Chesterfield Cricket Club and Queen’s Park serves and why it is succeeding. As Nigel himself will say, long may that continue.