With the new season nearly here, we have been catching up with all of our 11 senior captains ahead of the start of the 2026 campaign. They’ve been telling us what their plans are for the months ahead, what games they are looking forward to and what they have been up to over the winter.

In our final catch up, we spoke to the man tasked with trying to lead the 1st XI to promotion back to the Premier Division. Aaron Beard played a key role in a number of successes during his time with Essex, and he spoke to us about his hopes for 2026 at Upminster.

Amazingly this is your fifth year of playing for the club. How did the step up to captaincy come about??
While playing for Essex I didn’t get as many opportunities to play for Upminster. Now, having retired, I am playing full seasons and I’ve always enjoyed a leadership role within a team, so when this opportunity come up it was something that I was excited to do at this ever-evolving, great club and hopefully I can help the team push for a Premier Division spot.

We've finished 3rd in Division One in the last two seasons. Is promotion the target this year??
Promotion is definitely the target with the squad we have this year. The depth of both experience and youth will hopefully see the club achieve promotion in the coming years and thrive in leagues and cups we are playing in.

A lot of youngsters have broken into the side in recent years. What are you looking for from them this season??
I’m really excited for our squad this year, with a lot of young players as well as experienced ones for them to learn from. Hopefully this will help see the club go from strength to strength in the next five years and the younger team members can gain valuable experience as we move forward and take this club in the direction we want to go.

While you were at Essex the side won pretty much every honour in the County game. What did you learn from those years that can help you and the rest of the Upminster side??
I was extremely fortunate to be part of the county team when they won five trophies in five years, and I learnt a lot from those years. Some of the reason we were so successful was the unity and togetherness within the teams/club and the family feel around the place. I would like to bring that to our side/the club, which it does have already, and to continue to develop things in that regard.

How has the winter been and how has pre-season training gone??
Winter training has gone extremely well. All of our teams look ready to go and have wintered well indoors and are excited to get outdoors now and put all the hard work into helping to win games and enjoying our summer at Upminster.