THREE new clubs have been elected into the Shepherd Neame Kent Village Cricket League Division 6 to bring the league back up to full strength. The newcomers are Chilham, Hawkinge and Hollingbourne who have filled the vacancies caused the the withdrawals of Warehorne, Bossingham 2nds and Preston/Elmstone.

There were eight applications for the three places in one of the most popular leagues in the county. Disappontingly, only 41 clubs out of the possible 69 attended the annual meeting held at Ashford.

The league held their annual presentation night at the Homelands Stadium in Kingsnorth and there was a home success for Kingsnorth's Simon Dixon who carried off the prestigeous Young Player of the Year award.

It was a double triumph for opening batsman Dixon who also won the Division 5 batting award with 438 runs, including 117 against Great Chart 2nds, and also had scores of 88 and 77 as well as taking 10 wickets.

The Chairman's Award went to Richard Shackleton of Higham whp won the Division 2 batting award this season and has averaged 350 runs per season over the last 10 years mostly in the first division.

A well deserved award went to Great Chart's David Daniels who secured the Pauline Cane Memorial Trophy for service to the League.

Daniels, the league chairman, has served in the post for four years after 13 years as the league's vice-chairman.