West Yorkshire women’s indoor softball league launches

Despite the long COVID break, this summer saw a surge of interest in women’s softball in West Yorkshire from all ages and abilities.

Festivals, tournaments and matches took place across the region, host clubs included Old Leo’s, Thurstonland and Bradford Park Avenue Ladies. Keen to keep the momentum going, clubs have asked for an indoor winter softball league.

The league, believed to be the first of its kind in West Yorkshire, will take place on Sundays in the run-up to Christmas. The fixtures will kick off with some friendly taster matches on the 7th and 14th November.

Following that will be a round-robin competition culminating in a finals day. It’s hoped that the trial mini-league will develop into a more formalised competitive women’s indoor league after Christmas.

The venue for the new indoor soft ball league is Parkside Sports Centre in Bradford, and the teams will include some playing competitive matches for the very first time.

Teams entered so far are Burley in Wharfedale CC, BPAL CC, ALL Cricket, “In Mates”, Bradford Jaguars and Saltaire CC.

The league will be overseen by West Yorkshire women and girls club and league development manager, Katie Stewart, with the match days run by the West Yorkshire YCB team, with the help of club volunteers.

Katie is looking forward to getting started: “This is a first for West Yorkshire women’s softball, and we are really excited to see how it goes. I’m hoping that once we get started with a few teams, others will want to join. The format will be 6-a-side pairs cricket, so it should be easy to field a team, and indoor softball is just really good fun!”