Sport England - Movement Fund has provided £15,000 of match funding
Attenborough Cricket Club - New Net Facilities
Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom
£23,191
Target: £30,000
127 supporters
29 days left
Aim
Our new net facility will support our vision to provide the best, inclusive cricket experience in the heart of the community
Our Story
Founded in 1905 and re-formed in 1955, Attenborough CC is one of Nottinghamshire’s leading cricket clubs.
Our home ground, The Strand, is nestled next to the picturesque Attenborough Nature Reserve just 3 miles from the centre of Nottingham.
With four open-age senior Saturday league teams, two open-age Sunday teams, three senior Women’s league teams, an U19s squad, and a thriving junior mixed and girls’ section with over 300 members between the ages of 5 and 17; Attenborough provides a cricketing home for hundreds and hundreds of adults and children from across the local community.
Our focus is on fostering a life-long love of cricket, facilitating health and wellbeing, increasing activity and building accessible and inclusive community facilities for everyone to enjoy.
Many of our youngsters progress through the age groups to senior cricket; many of the over 100 volunteers, ground staff, coaches and helpers have been with the Club for years.
Attenborough was one of the first clubs in the Country to achieve Clubmark status (2006) in recognition of the cricketing opportunities we provide in a safe, well-run environment.
Our inclusive focus, welcoming and friendly atmosphere and growing membership is testament to the legacy of Attenborough Cricket Club.
Our success is evidenced by the numbers of happy players, supporters and volunteers that use the facilities almost every day across the summer months. With that comes the welcome challenge of fitting everyone in, and providing a quality and inclusive experience for all.
In 2013 the pavilion was rebuilt and has provided a superb base for the Club to grow. The growth of the Club, particularly coming out of COVID, has been significant and we now need to invest in what we have to future proof the Club for the foreseeable future.
Our Vision and our 3-year development plan
We set our Vision in our three-year development plan at the beginning of 2024, which is to build on what we have and provide the best, inclusive cricket experience for our members in the heart of the community.
This is aligned to the Club’s values of being a family-oriented, friendly and inclusive Club where visitors will receive a warm welcome.
We recognised that the growth in our Club was driven by the Starlings (Women and Girls) and Junior sections and that we needed to invest in our facilities to mitigate the capacity constraints that this was creating to work towards a more sustainable and inclusive future, which includes being a flagship club for women and girls cricket.
In 2024 we delivered
- a dedicated Women and Girls changing facility to support a more inclusive Club and the development of our growing Starlings’ group;
- two hybrid wickets, new covers and a new batting cage at our main ground at the Strand to help to mitigate our capacity issues; and
- new covers and sightscreens at our second ground at Chilwell Barracks to improve the cricketing experience for our members who play at that facility.
- in addition, we acquired a new live streaming facility to further showcase the Club.
New net facility - why we have a critical need to improve what we have
While our poll of Club members following the 2024 investment was extremely positive, a common theme when we asked about critical areas which needed the next round of investment was the replacement of the outdoor nets to improve the quality of the experience available to our membership.
This aligns with the final part of our current development plan.
The feedback from the poll referenced the outdoor nets being no longer fit for purpose, not creating a positive practice experience and putting people off using the facility. This has meant that training sessions are having to be undertaken on the square (resulting in a reduced capacity for matches to be played on the ground) and the numbers who would ordinarily train in the nets are reducing.
This is also putting more pressure on our volunteer grounds team to provide grass wickets for our members to use throughout the week.
Our plan to replace the current net facility will alleviate this and enable more people to train in the nets and have a significantly improved experience. It will also reduce the capacity pressure on our ground and on our ground team volunteers.
Current facility at the end of its useful life
Our two-lane outdoor nets were initially constructed over 30 years ago. Since then, they have been refreshed and refurbished on a number of occasions, but are now at the end of their useful life.
Over the years, and being exposed to the British weather, the base of the nets has degraded and is no longer fit for purpose.
There are challenges over the quality and consistency of the bounce and the length of the netting and the fact that the nets aren’t fully enclosed means that we have to take extra steps to mitigate the safety risks.
While the building of the flood wall, as part of the Trent Bank flood defences, has helped to protect the ground, the Village Green is still susceptible to flooding, as the recent examples below demonstrate.
The flooding on the ground has impacted on the facility which means that it is now time to replace it with a new solution.
Fundraising for our new three-lane outdoor nets at The Strand
Our fundraising project will take place during the 2026 cricket season with the target to have successfully completed it to enable the new facility to be installed in August / September 2026 so that it is in place for the start of the 2027 cricket season.
The picture below shows what it will look like.
Why are we crowdfunding?
We are fortunate to have the support of a number of local businesses who provide sponsorship in addition to donations from our valued supporters and the other income streams that our volunteers work so hard to generate which help to cover the running costs of the Club.
We recognise that crowdfunding will help us to develop our profile and give us the opportunity to build new and stronger relationships within our community to support the future growth of the Club.
The significant level of investment required to replace and enlarge our outdoor net facilities cannot be covered by the Club alone and we need to secure other sources of funding.
Through these crowdfunding efforts, the support of our community, the match funding from Sport England and grants from the ECB and other bodies, we can invest in the Club and safeguard the sustainable future of cricket in the local community in line with our Vision.
Funding plan
We anticipate that the overall cost of the project will be approximately £85,000.
This includes the removal and replacement of the old net facility with the new, larger, fit for purpose, ECB-approved net facility, and our planning permission costs.
We have engaged with the Nottinghamshire County Cricket Development officers to access the ECB County Grants scheme and, a successful outcome, alongside a legacy donation received from a former member of the Club, will cover approximately 30% of our funding requirement.
The delivery of a successful crowd funding campaign will deliver another 35% of our funding requirement and our project team are actively engaged in grant funding applications to raise the remaining funds.
We have already engaged with our membership through our Club newsletter, social media channels and Get Set Day to explain the project and its benefits, and have asked them to find ways of supporting it by reaching out to their networks, organising social activities and fundraising events, such as our Junior Club Day in May 2026 to drive engagement so that we can deliver a successful outcome.
We are looking forward to celebrating a successful outcome in September.
Building on our success, our growth and development
As our facilities improved, our cricket offer has grown, backed by the volunteers who are crucial to the ongoing success of the Club. Throughout our journey and central to the mission of our Club, it is essential that we remain true to our values of being a family-oriented, friendly club where visitors will always receive a warm welcome.
As well as investing in our facilities, we have continued to invest in our people, particularly our coaches, and have supported them with their qualifications. Two coaches took their Level 2 qualifications this year, and we plan to add to these numbers during 2026. In addition, two of our coaches have attended the Women in Cricket Conference in March 2026, bringing the knowledge and experience gained from that event back to the Club.
Having a new, fit-for-purpose, net facility along with our growing qualified coach numbers will support the growth in player participation. We envisage that this will also act as an incentive for more people to become qualified coaches if they can see the quality of the training nets in which they can work.
Quality of experience – encouraging more participation
Given the challenges with the existing nets, the feedback from our Club poll in 2024 clearly showed that there is a reluctance from our members to use them to their full capacity, preferring to train on our grass wickets on the square.
This puts further pressure on our grass wickets and limits the capacity for training and matches and the numbers who would ordinarily train in the nets are reducing.
The current capacity pressure means that we have to make arrangements with other local clubs to use their facilities for junior matches during the week which is an additional cost for the Club.
By replacing the existing facility with a top quality, ECB approved three-lane facility, we will be able to give our playing members a better training experience and build their confidence in using the nets.
The additional lane will also enable more people to use the nets at the same time (50% increase) and create more opportunities for our coaches to conduct 1-to-1 sessions to further develop our players.
We anticipate that this will increase participation across the Club.
Training in a safe environment – keeping people active
The new facility will ensure that our players and those our visiting teams are able to train in a safe environment.
The new base and matting will ensure consistency of bounce and the longer structure will give improved protection for the participants.
The nets will be fully enclosed, ensuring that balls will not be hit out of the facility, mitigating the risk to spectators and players.
This will be a key part of ensuring that the basic training needs are met and keeping players involved.
Development of players into hardball cricket – keeping people active and increasing participation
We have over 200 members playing in our All Stars and Dynamos groups and want to ensure that the transition into hardball cricket is smooth and that we retain as many of these players as possible.
In addition, our Starlings’ group future plans include adding a hardball U15s squad to the existing U13s hardball and U13s Incrediball squads in 2027. This will mean that we will have more girls between the ages of 5 and 16 playing hardball cricket at Attenborough, at a time when many turn away from sport.
We recognise that one of the challenges of a successful transfer into hardball cricket is having confidence when using a hardball and getting a positive experience of this in a net environment is crucial to bringing more players through into hardball cricket.
We will also need to create move capacity for this increase in playing numbers.
Having a new net facility in place for 2027 will go a long way to supporting this.
Sustainability and future proofing – keeping people active
We have been working with our contractors to plan a facility which is future proofed. Our proposal is to install an engineered, tarmac base, which gives us a sustainable facility with the optimum protection against the British winter.
Our investment in this type of facility will limit the weather damage (particularly to the base) and ensure that running and maintenance costs are kept to a minimum.
The expected life span of the new net carpet is 10 years and the tarmac base is 30 years, which will give longevity to the project and give assist our financial planning for future investment in the facility.
Our members will have the confidence that a future proofed facility will continue to give them a great training experience for many years to come.
Fostering greater involvement in the Club
The new, fully enclosed net facility will be a place where parents, family members and other supporters can safely watch the training sessions.
Through this campaign and significant investment, we aim to foster buy-in from this group, which will, in turn, lead to a greater involvement in the Club to support its sustainability and succession planning.
Community impact
Attenborough provides cricketing opportunities for all members of our wider community within a family-oriented, friendly Club.
The net facility is also used by visiting teams when they play their matches at the Strand.
We are currently in partnership in Stapleford CC, providing them with a facility to train while their new ground is being developed.
The Strand also hosts University of Nottingham fixtures, County representative matches and ECB National Finals as we continue to support the development of cricket in the local area.
Installing a new net facility will greatly enhance their experience of using our ground and act as a way of attracting new members to the Club. We estimate that over 1,200 people use the ground during the summer and that the new net facility will have a significant impact on a very large number of people in the local community.
For women and girls, our wider community includes areas such as Chilwell, Inham Nook and Stapleford, which don’t otherwise have access to women and girls cricket.
For the last few years, we have run cricket sessions in local primary schools including Eskdale Junior School and The Lanes. We intend to increase this engagement with other schools and community groups in these areas in 2026 and beyond to facilitate their participation in physical exercise and also the social interaction that cricket can provide.
Attenborough Village Green (The Strand) was established to provide recreational facilities for the local community under the control of the Attenborough Village Green Association.
Attenborough CC maintain the facility on their behalf and have close links with the other users – Attenborough FC and Attenborough Village Bowls Club and have also connected with Chilwell Manor Golf Club, and are building that relationship for the benefit of both clubs and the community.
In addition to cricket and football, the ground is used for the Village Fete and Scarecrow Festival and the pavilion also hosts events for local groups, including Carol singing, charity nights and Beer festivals and each year the Club selects a charity close to the hearts of our members to support.
The cricket pavilion at The Strand is open to social members, providing a place for local residents to gather and socialise with all the health and wellbeing benefits that brings.
Our fundraising efforts here will only help us to strengthen the Club and broaden our cricketing offer for the future across all age groups, skill levels and genders within our community.
How you can help
In order to achieve our target, which includes maximising the Sport England match funding, we need to hit our financial target and also our target for the number of donations within the funding period. Getting your help and support is so important, every little helps get us closer to our goal.
The Crowd Funding campaign will be successful by engaging with our community. Across the Club we have nearly 500 members and if we can utilise all of their networks, we can really get some momentum. Please think about friends and family and business contacts, talk to them about what we are doing and see how they might be able to help.
Donate any amount you can
- If you'd like something special in addition to your donation, check out the rewards tiers and see if anything tickles your fancy
Spread the news
- Help spread our story far and wide, if you use social media, please like and share our messages on social media channels
Fundraise
- Organise your own fundraising event, and link it to the Crowdfunding page by using the multiplier option.
The more people we can get involved the better.
We want you to feel part of this project and get the satisfaction from contributing.
This will help us to engage with a wide network of people and give us a better opportunity to beat our fundraising and number of supporters targets.
Think of something fun to do – such as a sponsored activity – and involve others.
- This will help us to engage with a wide network of people and give us the best chance to beat our fundraising and number of supporters targets. Think of something fun to do – such as a sponsored activity – and involve others.
Source rewards and prizes
- Use your network to source rewards that we can offer in return for donations. These could be vouchers to spend in local shops or restaurants.
- Use your network to source prizes or experiences for a prize draw.
This can be linked to the Crowdfunding page using the prize draw option and enable us to grow our group of supporters and help us to hit our fundraising goals.
Examples could be experienced based – sport occasions, concerts and music festivals, hotels and spas or dining – or prizes such as cricket bats or signed shirts.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. We look forward to receiving your support to help us achieve our vision to provide the best, inclusive cricket experience in the heart of the community.
Funding method
Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made by 23rd July 2026 at 10:39am