Fylde Cricket Club New Practice Facilities

Aim

To install new practice facilities ready for 2023.

Our Cricket Club

Fylde Cricket Club is a popular community club, established since 1810 in the heart of Poulton-le-Fylde. In that time, many thousands of people of all ages have enjoyed the warm and welcoming atmosphere, playing cricket, socialising, and making friends for life.  

The club has trebled membership in the past 3 years, now with over 400 members, 170 of which are playing members. We play in the Palace Shield Cricket competition, with 4 senior teams and 4 junior teams. Our junior section is thriving, with a waiting list of new members, and we hope to soon expand further with older age groups and girls teams. 

Why do we need new practice facilities?

The existing fixed practice facility is now approaching 25 years old and is beyond repair or improvement. We believe these facilities are no longer of a standard which allows us to extract the maximum ability from our players and reap the full benefits of our excellent coaching setup.  

The replacement of this facility has been considered for several years, but we have been unable to obtain any funding due to there being no suitable location on our site that would meet the ECB guidelines on size and orientation. 

Based on the condition of the current facility we now only have one dedicated practice surface, that being the new non-turf pitch installed on the square in April 2022, which is clearly not enough to handle our playing membership numbers. The grass match square has been used when necessary to provide extra capacity but is not an ideal solution with the square already being extremely busy in hosting 60+ matches a season. Our popularity is growing, and we need to increase our practice capacity to match. A new facility would also allow us to offer better facilities to a greater number of individuals and groups in the area, including local schools.  

If we can improve our practice areas, we feel that our overall facilities would be well up there with the best in the area, securing our future for another generation of players.  

The proposed new facility

Phase one of the project would be to dismantle the existing fixed practice cage structure. The area left behind would then provide a space to store the roll-on covers which are currently located on the far side of the ground. The new facility would involve:

• Two lanes of high-quality practice surfaces being installed, with surrounds and incorporating run up area for bowlers to avoid the outfield being damaged. 
• Two portable cages being used over these surfaces. With these being portable this provides a very flexible solution for us and does not require any new planning permission to be obtained. In reality, the cages will rarely move other than being pushed back fully off the outfield for matches. 
• Removable net and post systems will be installed using heavy-duty, permanent, ground sockets. The first one will go down the middle of the two lanes to protect users in the opposite lane. The second one will go behind the bowlers. This would firstly stop the ball getting onto the outfield and therefore allow the practice area to be used during junior matches. Secondly, this net would incorporate white sheeting to provide a sight screen for batters. Both net and post systems would be removed when not in use, meaning the only part of the new facility that encroaches on the outfield would be the actual ground level playing surfaces. Many other clubs have their practice pitches running onto the outfield, so we don’t see this being an issue. 

We believe this layout would provide a high quality and extremely flexible solution that deals as best as possible with the challenges and limitations our ground provides. This system should last us in the region of 10-15 years if maintained correctly.  

Funding

The project has been fully costed and is expected to cost between £25,000 and £30,000 depending on final specification. We intend on funding this through a variety of sources including small grants, ring-fenced targeted fundraising events, and a members loan scheme.

However, we've also set this crowdfunding page up to hopefully get some direct donations from anyone who is willing to help us with this project!

We fully understand everyone has different circumstances and we might not be the top of your charitable donations list - but we really hope you can see the benefits and what any donation would do to help keep our community club going for many years to come. 

This project closed unsuccessfully on 31st August 2022