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General Cricket => Your Cricket => Grounds => Topic started by: bradleywiggins123 on June 06, 2020, 09:01:27 PM
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I appreciate playing numbers have dropped in the last 10/15 years but in my local area(South East Essex) the number of pitches that have been lost at public parks is alarming. At a number of them the squares are still intact and in theory could be revived(how long can a square be left without maintenance and be brought back to life?)but once they’ve stopped being used the council have no interest in putting them back into use even if you offer to cover all costs.
Is this a common occurrence in your area?
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Not necessarily public parks, but last year I played a couple of games for my old team in Kent for the first time in about 15 years, and I was shocked at how many of the local teams had folded during my absence. I reckon at least half of the teams I used to play against have either disappeared altogether or merged with another struggling team. It also shocked me just how much the standard had declined.
Out here in sunny Oxfordshire it seems to be less of an issue. In fact I would say that amateur cricket seems to be thriving.
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All sports have been declining for 20+ years sadly . We have a stats man who has put all the clubs games (and I mean all - correctly scored ball by ball) since about 1980 and if you go back even just to 1998-2002 the number of teams who no longer exist is very high. There is a rise in big clubs having 2/3/4/5 xi’s but nowhere near enough to replace the loss of players and sadly, genuine village grounds .
Get used to it, future is fewer but ‘super’ clubs so you I’ll play the same club league in league out but just their 8th, 7th, 6th xi Etc
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The clubs that have been lost in our leagues have tended to be village clubs where the population has been falling or effectively turning into retirement villages. Jobs are in the city and with more housing available on the edge of the city it's easier to live close to work.
We've actually seen a massive uptick in mid size clubs putting out more junior sides, partly due to hard work from volunteers but also because the local council has supported cricket in schools which has made kids aware of the sport. Difficulty will be turning keen juniors into keen seniors but there's hope!
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I don't sense in places I am regularly that there is a massive drop off - maybe a few village clubs as Jimbo points out where the population is no longer demographically able to sustain a team, but through the Thames Valley area, for example, there are not many League clubs that have "gone" - Ruislip Manor, Caversham & Readingensians, ICI Paints and British Airways are the ones I can think of, and two of those were thriving well enough numbers wise when the Companies that owned them sold the facilities.
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The clubs that have been lost in our leagues have tended to be village clubs where the population has been falling or effectively turning into retirement villages. Jobs are in the city and with more housing available on the edge of the city it's easier to live close to work.
We've actually seen a massive uptick in mid size clubs putting out more junior sides, partly due to hard work from volunteers but also because the local council has supported cricket in schools which has made kids aware of the sport. Difficulty will be turning keen juniors into keen seniors but there's hope!
It’s fashionable for clubs to have loads of youth sides but not many stay in the game % wise. Still, glad some areas aren’t doing too badly but the overall figures suggest it’s dropping year on year
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I read yesterday that Flitoff's first club pitch will be built on with a housing estate. But that hasn't been played on for 7 years...
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Thanks for the responses but these seem to have gone a bit off-topic onto the loss of the teams and clubs, something, sadly, we’re all too familiar with here in Essex.
However, what I want to talk about is the loss of pitches at public parks. Some of these have had cricket played in them for anything from sixty to over a hundred years but have now stopped in the last 5-10 years ,never it seems to return.
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Council wickets are just not looked after, horrible to play on and once no one uses them, fall into disrepair.
I think I know of at least ‘technically’ 14-15 wickets which are council owned now not used or maintained but are still there currently. Generally now used as dog pooing areas
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Just in the space of a cup of coffee within a 10 mile radius of where I live I can think of a dozen pitches that have been lost in the last 10 years. Some of them were quite lovely places to play, the pitch at Clements Hall ,last used in 2016 ,was a particular favourite.
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Just in the space of a cup of coffee within a 10 mile radius of where I live I can think of a dozen pitches that have been lost in the last 10 years. Some of them were quite lovely places to play, the pitch at Clements Hall ,last used in 2016 ,was a particular favourite.
Council pitches rarely seem to be nice though let’s be honest. If the ECB cared they could buy up farm land, and rent it to smaller (not big clubs) clubs to make nice long term grounds
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Big problem with council pitches is that you get ground staff whose main job is doing football pitches so they treat the cricket grounds like a football pitch. A perfect football pitch is a shocking cricket outfield and probably vice versa.
Long term, the best option is probably for clubs to take over ground maintenance with a grant for equipment which is hopefully what our club will do eventually.
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No one's addressed the major point here. Council's parks, green spaces, open spaces departments habe been decimated due to budget cuts amd the prioritising of 'more important' departments as councils have to cost cut.
Many parks departments have been integrated into highways, cemetries, etc and the epxertise has been lost with laying off staff and lack of training of new, young groundspeople.
Football pitches are being cut every other week as opposed to weekly amd the knowledge and cost of preparing cricket pitches has been lost. The demand is there. LMS and BAME groups would play on parks pitches, but the resources have fallen off the cliff.
My job entails protecting green spaces with councils amd sports clubs. Trust me, the meetings I've had with councils over the past 5+ years I've seen parks departments go from 40+ staff to less than 10 across many local authorities.
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That’s an extremely incisive response on this issue. Council funding has been slashed year on year on and so much things have had to give. How long can a square be left before it’s too late to bring it back to life again?
I agree the demand is there for pitches that can be hired by various teams. We have BAME teams from London desperate to find pitches to play on who travel into Essex to find pitches.
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That’s an extremely incisive response on this issue. Council funding has been slashed year on year on and so much things have had to give. How long can a square be left before it’s too late to bring it back to life again?
I agree the demand is there for pitches that can be hired by various teams. We have BAME teams from London desperate to find pitches to play on who travel into Essex to find pitches.
Thanks, that is precisely the issue, in that the knowledge required to tend a cricket square has been lost. Councils won't commit to long term leases to teams in many cases as the land becomes an asset they may have to sell. It makes my job increasingly harder- how do you promote the benefits of green spaces and their value to comunities when the council is talking about having to lay off staff or cut social services?
This is an ongoing issue, particularly in the north, where council tax income simply isn't the same as in the south. The combination of losing the parks staff, their knowledge, experience, training of new staff and parks and green space provision means this is the new norm. We're not going to see a standard we'd expect of public park cricket pitches anymore, on the whole, sadly.
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Council pitches rarely seem to be nice though let’s be honest. If the ECB cared they could buy up farm land, and rent it to smaller (not big clubs) clubs to make nice long term grounds
If the ECB had the money, which they don't, farmers are going to want to sell their land for development. Land gets sold at a price for which it will be used. A farmer who needs to sell their land are far more likely to do so to a housing developer for millions rather than donate the land to a sports club, as used to be the case, or for receational use.
You've only got to look at the number of housing developers adjacent to cricket amd sport clubs across former fatmland cropping up across the UK to see that's the case. The bygone days of farmers contributing land gratis are generally long gone.
Always, always, follow the money. Developers are often offering councils more money to develop on green space,as opposed to brownfield land as its cheaper to develop and doesn't need decontaminating. Same applies to farmers. Developers see rolling fields and views for executive homes, far more profit to be made there than apartmemts in towns...
Land is a valuable resource. There's not a public sports body that will be able to keep up with housing and commercial developers, alas.
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Depressing but true, sadly.
Turning back to pitches in public parks can anyone think of an instance when a local council have reinstated a pitch. I can’t think of a single example locally to me but surely somewhere it has happened I hope
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There used to be a quite beautiful park pitch not to far from my home in inner London. A few years ago, might be a bit longer, but the council increased the pitch fees to such an extent where the side played there folded. When i occasionally walk passed there you can still see the square when the grass has been cut. It’s pretty sad as I always wanted to play there. Maybe in another life
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That is a great pity, particularly in London ,where pitches are in such short supply .
Which park is it out of interest?
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Been a long time since I played there but there was a stunning wicket in Greenwich Park in London at the top by the main gates with a lovely pavilion, it was stunning in all aspects but must be 10 years at least since I played there and about 7 years since I last went there.
In the main though where I live in Suffolk we don’t play on any council park pitches that I can remember but used to have a few in the Kent feeder leagues. Dartford heskeath Park which was used by Kent up until the 80’s I think is a stunning deck and still going, Bostal Heath near Erith was another that was pretty good back in the day
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Anyone play in the Southend area? When I was a junior in the area they used to play County matches at Southchurch Park and Chalkwell Park, both lovely grounds and both town owned. Bet they don't use for 1st class anymore, but do they maintain decent pitches there for clubs?
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Essex stopped using Southchurch Park a few years back and Chalkwell Park quite considerably longer. Both still in use by resident clubs and both nice grounds to play on with attractive pavilions.I can just about recall when they use to playcricket in Priory Park, which was a lovely setting. Amazingly after 35 to 40 years since the last game there the square is still intact.
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I don't remember cricket at Priory Park, must have made a lovely ground. Last time I saw Essex at Southchurch Park must have been 42 years ago (!)
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If you wander past the bandstand onto the football pitches and head left towards the entrance at the top of Victoria Avenue you can see the square still perfectly intact after all this time. Just up the road there were two cricket pitches at Victory Sports Ground and these have gone in the last couple of years. Horrible changing rooms but played in some highly enjoyable games there over the years.
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No one's addressed the major point here. Council's parks, green spaces, open spaces departments habe been decimated due to budget cuts amd the prioritising of 'more important' departments as councils have to cost cut.
It is a terribly short termist approach to cut spending on recreation when compared to the long term costs of obesity and poor health but I sympathise with the local authorities having to implement these decisions. Their budgets are being cut by central government and the costs of providing services which they have a statutory obligations (imposed by the same central government cutting their budgets) are going up. It is inevitable that those areas of discretionary spending such as recreation are feeling the brunt of the cuts.
There seems to be an increasing divide between rural areas like where I am based where we have too many clubs as demographic changes and changes to family life are making it harder for clubs to get sides out, and urban areas where there aren't enough pitches but a high demand to play. The loss of local authority pitches is only going to make this worse
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... And don't forget that football is king in most areas. If anything will be cut back it will be cricket facilities with its small/ dwindling numbers, while maintaining football pitches. Nothing against football which I also enjoy (watching only!) but a better balance would be good.
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... And don't forget that football is king in most areas. If anything will be cut back it will be cricket facilities with its small/ dwindling numbers, while maintaining football pitches. Nothing against football which I also enjoy (watching only!) but a better balance would be good.
I know the same issues are being raised by those who use local authority football pitches. Hire costs going up and quality of preparation and mainteance going down.
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It is a terribly short termist approach to cut spending on recreation when compared to the long term costs of obesity and poor health but I sympathise with the local authorities having to implement these decisions. Their budgets are being cut by central government and the costs of providing services which they have a statutory obligations (imposed by the same central government cutting their budgets) are going up. It is inevitable that those areas of discretionary spending such as recreation are feeling the brunt of the cuts.
There seems to be an increasing divide between rural areas like where I am based where we have too many clubs as demographic changes and changes to family life are making it harder for clubs to get sides out, and urban areas where there aren't enough pitches but a high demand to play. The loss of local authority pitches is only going to make this worse
I agree with you 100%. The challenge I have is in trying to get councils to look beyond the short termism and to commit to protecting a park or playing field. Incredibly difficult and I empathise with the issues they have
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That is a great pity, particularly in London ,where pitches are in such short supply .
Which park is it out of interest?
Sorry I missed this, I can't quite remember the name of the park anymore. I moved away from the area and just discovered that park in now a housing development :o if the name comes back to me I'll post it afterward