ALLOA played host to a travelling grand slam cricket tournament last week, with four Forth Valley clubs facing off against one other.

The Arns welcomed Doune Cricket Club, Dunblane Cricket Club and Stirling County Cricket Club for the seventh edition of the weekly kids cricket slam.

Sun poured down on the Arns as 40 young crickets from Forth Valley stepped up to play against one another.

Clackmannan County Cricket Club played Doune, whilst Stirling and Dunblane faced off against one another.

Clacks unfortunately lost out on glory this week round, falling to a 117-72 defeat to Doune.

Despite the loss, organisers of the event have praised the slam tournaments, citing it as key to keeping children interested in the sport.

Joe Smith, junior convener at Clackmannan Cricket Club, said: “It’s worked really well, it was a new approach to try and get junior games organised.

“There’s upwards of around 35, 40 kids there every Sunday and parents are well represented as well.

“We’ve had in the past where kids get to a certain age and they lose interest, so this is a good way of keeping that interest alive by holding a friendly competition on Sundays.

“We had a junior section some years ago and it kind of fell away. This has been an absolute godsend for us because we’re now able to retain players at the club.”

Joe explained that he hoped to use the slam tournaments as a stepping stone for kids to go on and play hardball cricket.

He said there are roughly five kids from each club who are ready for hardball, whilst the rest are close and are working on it.

The Sunday slam tournaments were brought in to provide kids at cricket clubs with guaranteed weekly matches so they could test their skills.

Attendance has remained high and organisers have now set up a league table and an MVP system, both of which can be found at sundayslam.org.uk.

Follow @5cricketclubs for more information about the cricket slams and for info about where the next one will be held.