Training facilities and ground security

About Us
Buttershaw St Paul’s CC is a longstanding local cricket club based in south Bradford, currently fielding two senior teams playing in the Bradford Cricket League; one senior team in the Halifax Sunday League; another in the Bradford Evening League and junior teams playing at U9s, U11s, U13s and U15s. The club has also participated in the All Stars programme since 2018, helping to introduce an even greater number of young people to the sport of cricket.

Our Club

The club dates back to the 1890s and has been a mainstay of the local community ever since, expanding and developing through the efforts of countless dedicated volunteers. The main strength and focal point of the club has long been the junior section. With the ground lying so close to a number of local primary schools, this is hardly surprising. However, it is still a source of great pride that we are able to field junior teams at every available age group every season. Junior training on a Friday night regularly sees a socially diverse mix of between 40 - 50 children, boys and girls of all abilities, learning their trade and taking their first steps in the cricketing world. Moreover, on any given weekend, at least half of our senior teams are still comprised of players who have come through our own junior system, showcasing why we choose to run the club in this way.

It is this ethos that we wish to protect during these difficult and uncertain times.

Community Work

We are excited to announce our new partnership with local mental health charity and support group - The Speak In Club. Individual and collective wellbeing is as important in sport as it is in life. The past year has brought home just how integral this is to many of us. The inspiring work of the Speak In Club has been a source of great pride for the wider Bradford community and we are delighted to be involved in supporting them. We were honored that they considered us for this partnership and we look forward to witnessing the positive impact it can have our club and others in our community.

COVID Effect
2020 was a difficult year for everyone and cricket clubs were no different. We were belatedly able to participate in a shortened season, but the necessary social distancing guidelines meant that we were unable to run any of our usual fundraising activities. Under normal circumstances, the club would have provided our usual array of entertaining social events such as the famous Beach Party, Race Night Mr & Mrs Cricket and Golf Day. We also enjoy hosting our very popular August Bank Holiday Family Fun Day and In 2019, we combined this event with a memorial match in honor of former player Derek Wharf. This event raised over £1000 for the Alzheimer's Society. We look forward to restarting these events, when restrictions allow, but their loss last year was an unfortunate, yet hard felt, consequence of the pandemic.

Looking Forward

Moving out of the pandemic, it is proving very difficult for sports clubs to protect the services they supply and the investments they have made in supporting this. club has worked tirelessly throughout the last year, to make sure that we protected our finances as much as possible in the circumstances. As we look towards what will hopefully be a brighter future for all this summer, we wish to maintain and develop the facilities and protect what we believe makes our club so special.

Our Aims

The club has two clear objectives, that we believe are essential for our future in providing the high level of facilities and training.

1) Training Wicket/Surrounding Area

We wish to replace our artificial training wicket and make repairs to the surrounding area. As a result of various acts of thoughtless vandalism, our current training wicket has been severely damaged. This obviously limits training options for all of our teams, but especially for the junior cricketers that use this facility as their main training area and who turn up every week to hone their skills. Many of these boys and girls also like to use this area as a safe spot to play on a match day. All of this has made it so disappointing that someone has chosen to damage this facility.

2) Ground Security & Fencing

In order to better protect the ground, we need to replace the fencing that surrounds the club. The new fencing is to be 2 metres in height and made of a stronger material for better protection, stopping any unwanted visitors. Our volunteers work incredibly hard to maintain our playing and practice facilities and we believe that these efforts deserve to be fully protected. It is simply not fair to the club members and players to see vandalism damage what so many people have worked hard to achieve. Furthermore, it should allow us to focus on what is most important, simply playing and enjoying cricket.

A Big Thanks
So if you feel in a position to help us achieve these goals, it would be incredibly gratefully received. Any donation you can make would be a tremendous help. Hopefully we can reward your generosity by welcoming you to the ground in the future, to see what your donations will have helped to achieve.