We are an open community amateur sports club, established in 1857, promoting the sport of cricket, physical activity and social inclusion to residents, local schools and community groups. We moved to our current location, a former landfill, around 65 years ago. Stretford CC is the only amateur cricket club serving the least affluent areas in Trafford including Stretford, Old Trafford, Gorse Hill & Lostock.
Where we were in 1957…
We are a volunteer run club. Volunteers provide the grounds maintenance, the management committee, and the sports management and coaching. The limited funds available to run the club come from donations from local business, donations for the use of the premises and membership fees from players.
We provide a safe and structured environment for children from age 5 to 18, and seniors from 18, to train and play cricket and develop. We are a community club, progressing from within, with no professional players. Our facilities are available for the use of the local community for example we host School fun days for two local schools, the Stretford Muslim Centre Ramadan Celebration and are the venue for a Stretford Slimming World Group.
We work closely with community groups from all backgrounds and ethnicities to raise money for charity and create a positive atmosphere of inclusion within the community. Recent charity events have included a Macmillian cancer research fun day, and our annual fundraiser for the Montserrat Action Group.
Local families use the facilities because of the safe, enclosed maintained grassed area for family celebrations with regular Eid dinners, children’s parties (all with bouncy castles, tug-of-war with the boundary rope)
Stretford Cricket Club is primarily used for leisure and recreation and boasts 4 senior teams and 6 junior teams all playing a regular calendar of matches during seven months of the year from March to September. Stretford Cricket Club also hosts two women's cricket matches and two disabled cricket matches via the Lancashire Cricket Board during the summer. The teams are made up from all parts of the local community with a diverse mix of ethnicity, age and ability.
Stretford Cricket Club has links with 6 local primary schools and 4 secondary schools and hosts three all day cricket tournaments through the summer and school parties all year round. We are a venue for local business-based cricket teams.
The Club is open to all members of the local community on match days, and all other times the gates are open, even when games are not being played, with access to seating as well as the grassed spaces. Stretford Cricket Club is open to the community for their dedicated use all year round including a weekly evening fitness club with 25 members on Thursday evenings, Slimming World all day on Mondays with over 50 attendees and regularly allows members of the community to use the building for personal celebrations; the club is an ideal venue for birthday parties for all ages, Highfield Primary School Leavers Parties, Christenings and even funeral wakes.
Stretford Cricket Club organises large community events including a hugely popular family annual bonfire and fireworks party which attracts around 500 guests. The Macmillian Cancer Day was attended by over 400 people from the community. The Montserrat Action Group Annual Cricket Match which features a Stretford Cricket Club Team take on the Montserrat Islanders who sought a new life following a devastating volcanic eruption on the island in the Caribbean and an annual Ramadan Celebration with around 50 guests from two local mosques using the club house and grounds to party. Local family groups also use the facilities for Eid fast breaking get togethers.
With all of the above on a regular basis our facilities are available to the public for leisure or recreation for over 104 days per year. As a mainly outdoor amenity we are fully open to the public under the management of our volunteers more outside winter: both weekend days and at least two evenings every week. The Stretford Cricket Club amenities are available to the public for their own events all through the winter and mid-week in the summer.
We have a 5-10 year plan to rebuild our club house but in the meantime the club needs to create efficiency savings, reduce overheads and maintain/develop the other facilities we have in order to continue to share our space with everyone.
Our crowdfunding projects seeks to focus on green improvements – club members built our storage facilities for our ground machinery but they have reached their shelf life – we need to replace the storage buildings with fully recycled storage units which will be easier to maintain and last much longer. We want to install more solar panels on the roof of our new build changing room. A recent installation of solar panels covers around a third of our electric use – we still pay £6000 per year! We want to replace the outdoor seating with heavy duty recycled seating to provide enough comfortable seating for all the people who visit the ground. We also need to replace our disabled access ramp which was built around 10 years ago with a more permanent structure.
Before the club even stages any cricket matches it has overheads of over £15K per year – that’s without paying any staff because we’re all volunteers! Any help or donation would be greatly appreciated.
Costs to carry out these outdoor improvements include:
Solar Panels: 15K
Disabled Ramp: 7K
Outdoor Seating: 5K
Sheds Replacements: 8K