Murton Cricket Club moved to the Welfare Grounds in 1934 and are a not for profit community focused cricket and social club. All of our players are amateurs and all of our committee and coaches are volunteers. In 2024 we fielded 6 senior teams, including 2 women’s teams and 7 junior teams including 2 girls teams. In 2025 we will retain our 6 senior teams and our junior teams will increase to 10 including 3 girls teams.
Our community is former coal fields with over 40% of primary aged school children eligible for free school meals. Deprivation figures in our community are high with many families on low incomes.
As a not for profit community group we offer subsidised cricket and social events for all of our adult and junior players as well as our community. Adults pay on average £2.50 per week and juniors pay on average less than £1 per week. It is the club’s belief and goal to provide playing opportunities for all, while keeping the cost to participate as low as practicably possible.
Coming out of COVID lockdowns our junior playing numbers had significantly decreased to around half of that going into COVID.
Over the last three years the club has worked hard to engage and encourage juniors to take up and play cricket. Since 2022 we have grown significantly increasing our junior teams from 3 to 11. Whilst doing this we have increased our female participation numbers from 4 to around 30.
It’s about more than cricket at Murton, we provide a family friendly social environment for people of all ages, abilities, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and social background. We help build communities whether it’s a place for parents to meet, adults and children to build relationships or create friendships which help to address the serious issues of loneliness and mental health issues, particularly amongst men.
Why are we Crowdfunding?
We are crowdfunding to raise funds to complete our Scorebox renovation project and to purchase a storage container to enable our female changing room project.
Score Box
Our existing score box was deemed unsafe around 2012, mainly due to concrete degradation and erosion to its lintels.
This means our scorers now have to either sit outside, in all elements or share space in the community bar. Both of these scenarios create issues for the scorers which decreases their enjoyment of participating in the game that they love.
In partnership with the landowner Murton Parish Council and its building’s operator Murton Welfare Association, we have raised sufficient funds to renovate the score box, including a new roof and drainage.
However, the funds raised so far do not cover the purchase of an electronic score board and the basic fit out of the internal area of the score box.
Girl’s Changing Rooms
Our girl’s playing numbers have grown rapidly and we now have 15 girls playing in county performance and development pathways and more playing in our pathway at our club.
Some of our girls now represent the club at senior 2XI, 3XI and 4XI level. As our pavilion only has two changing rooms, this creates a shortage of changing rooms on senior match days. This results in the girls having to change in storage areas which is unacceptable and something that we want to address as a priority ahead of the new cricket season, however, funds are an issue.
Our EoI for a county grant from the ECB has received in principle approval and we are working with the ECB to secure a grant to refurbish the storage areas into female changing rooms. This is a key priority for the Club as we believe that our ladies and girls should have equal and suitable changing spaces that increase their enjoyment and love of the game.
To facilitate the changing room project the Club needs to purchase a storage container. This enabling project will allow the club to relocate all of its cricket equipment out of the pavilion and free up the storage areas to be refurbished into female changing rooms.
Thank you for taking the time to read out story, any small donations towards our projects would be greatly appreciated.