Who are we?
Silverdale CC was formed in 1893 and has provided competitive village cricket throughout the ensuing years. Having had at least 4 grounds within the village boundary, the club moved to its current ground in 1995, securing a long lease from the National Trust to convert two farm fields into the wonderful cricket ground that exists today.
We are a not for profit Community Amateur Sports Club ( CASC) and we pride ourselves on being a family friendly club that our supporters love. A welcoming, friendly vibe, fantastic teas, and our well stocked bar make the club a first choice on a sunny day to watch a competitive game of cricket.
During 2024 we were awarded “Clubmark” accreditation, which meant we had achieved the gold standard issued by the England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB) which assesses all aspects of running a club including governance and safeguarding.
We work hard to ensure we keep raising our standards, and the level of inclusion and care for all our club members and supporters. 
Looking up the ground to the pavilion
The ground supports two adult teams playing in the First and Fourth Divisions of the Westmorland Cricket League plus our Ladies team playing in the Women's Westmorland Softball Cricket League league with great success, never losing any of their league games during 2024.
We also have active junior teams at Under 9, and for the 2025 season, a new Under 11 side, both competing in the Westmorland Junior Cricket League. This means we can offer cricket to all primary school aged children, and hopefully finding the the spark that ignites them to continue as players as they grow into adulthood. .
The All stars (4-8) and Dynamo’s (9-11) have their own eight week courses starting each May, in an initiative supported by the England & Wales Cricket Board and attended by over 200 children in the last 4 years from the local village and school!
Why are we crowdfunding?
We need to build an extension ……and a new roof !
Our ladies are a relatively new team and have been very successful. They have players aged from 14-73 years so we cater for all ages and abilities. They won the Westmorland League Ladies Softball league in 2024 and have also had members selected to play in mixed teams with men in our senior league cricket.
At present they have to change in the public female WC cubicle to maintain their privacy, which has led to a number of issues. We’ve had the ladies come of the field to get changed and find there is a queue to get into the toilet.
Once the game finishes the ladies have to wait till the male players have changed and then they can use the existing changing room showers. This isn’t ideal especially in summer when all you want to do is have a shower once you’ve finished the game.
The Club Room inside the main pavilion is not huge, and when teas are being served or the bar is really busy, it can be embarrassing to use our current ladies toilet, which is in the disabled WC, The door to the above opens out into the main Club Room area, and is quite uncomfortable for our ladies and girls, when the players and spectators are sat eating their tea as they exit the WC.
Also, our gents WC is shared with the away changing rooms which causes confusion, and some gents use the ladies toilet because they can’t find the gents WC.
This can't continue as we are finding more and more women and girls are playing in the senior leagues with the men. In the Westmorland league alone we have roughly 24 women and girls representing their own clubs which is a 300% increase over the last 3 years.
The new facilities for the ladies will also be used by our younger female members who attend All Stars, Dynamos and Junior training and will afford them a level of privacy not offered by our current layout.
So we desperately need to build an extension to the pavilion to provide a brand new purpose built ladies and girls changing room, complete with WC's and showers to avoid any further embarrassment.
The leaking roof ……
We also have another major problem in that our 25 year old felt roof is now starting to leak in places. You can see the felt on the roof in the picture above Felt has a design life of 15 years so its time for us to re-roof the whole pavilion with profile sheeting. This will allow us to match the roof across the new extension to create a consistent look. The picture below is the damage in one of the shower rooms.
The worry is that if the roof starts to leak more as the roof felt degrades we could be in a difficult position if we cant control the ingress of damp and the consequences that can bring, so we really have to act now to resolve both of these major issues.
Our Storage problems .....
We have expanded so much in recent years, so between our Men and Ladies playing gear, our All Stars and Dynamos junior cricket bags, balls, bats and stumps etc. we are falling over things in our garage, which doubles as the current storage area.
This is unsafe and we need to keep it off limits to avoid accidents, as the garage was designed to house all our grounds machinery, which has also expanded as we get busier as a club.
So we have had to start using our old score hut to store our kit. Sadly It’s insecure and damp so our new plan means we need to knock down the score hut to make way for a more modern solution, which is our new extension to the side of the clubhouse.
This will cater for all our playing kit and the electronic scoreboard that we wheel out for any games, and we can ensure the garage is off limits to all but ground staff, to avoid any Health & Safety problems or accidents.
The Old Score hut ……
We need more toilets as well ....
Our design also gives us two additional public toilets for our club visitors, which will be accessible from outside the building. These will avoid the need to enter the main bar and tea room which can get very crowded during the break between innings.
How we’ll spend the money raised
Our main objective is to build the extension to the pavilion to be able to create a new Ladies changing room and shower area, and to re--roof the the whole building to eradicate the leaks that are now appearing in places.
Externally it will be finished in cedar cladding to match the existing, and a new roof to cover the whole building to achieve a high-level finish.
Our building is set on land leased from the National Trust and also is within an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, (AONB) and we are keen to preserve the look of our traditional wooden pavilion.
Club members will be undertaking a lot of the work on the inside of the finished building where possible to save costs, (painting, finishes etc and external paving ) but we will need a main contractor to build the foundations and construct the walls and roof of the extension.
Our current budget stands at £45,100 including VAT. We are not registered for VAT so can’t reclaim this element. An estimate via the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) suggest a cost of between £1000 - £1100 per square metre for a wooden building on a solid foundation. The planned extension is just under 41 square metres, so we think our budget is reasonably robust, subject to final quotes.
The plans below have recently been given planning permission and to date the club has paid out nearly £8000 to reach this stage. Planning submissions, legal fees and the required consultants reports certainly add up.
We now move to Building Control stage and will need Construction Drawings /Building Regs etc, which we estimate to be between £ 3000-£4000 which we need to fund. The club has used its modest financial reserves to fund all these elements, and so desperately need your support to realise our plans for the Ladies changing facilities and the new roof.
We can only start the project when the funds required are available and we appeal to your generosity to ensure that we can accommodate our burgeoning Ladies & Girls Teams with the modern facilities they deserve and a roof fit for the future, by the end of this year.
We are actively seeking other funds from the ECB of £10,000, which although not guaranteed, would help cover the shortfall between our target of £30,775 on Crowdfunder and the projected costs of £45,100. The club will put in £4,325 towards the total from our modest reserves to fund the shortfall.
We are delighted to advise that Sport England have offered a pledge of £15,000 towards our project if we can reach the campaign target of £30,775. We need to reach a minimum of £5000 from 25 unique supporters to trigger the Sport England Match funding, This means every £1 donated will be worth £2 to our overall total !!
Thank you for reading about our appeal, anything you can give will be gratefully received.
Our new extension plans …
Ladies Changing, New Roof, Storage and 2 additional Toilets
Our Community impact
The club has been at the centre of sport in Silverdale for 132 years. We are proud to keep challenging ourselves to improve our club so that we can keep offering a safe and vibrant hub for all our villagers. The ground is used on most nights (as well as the weekend of course) for cricket related activities and games.
However, we offer much more than cricket, ensuring that we provide an energetic and vibrant environment for people of all ages, abilities, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and social background.
We believe that playing sport not only keeps you physically fit, it also helps with keep you mentally fit . By providing at least 1 hour a week training/games, to over 60 people in the community we are making a difference to their mental health. People have such busy lives now it’s an opportunity for us to take their minds of all the worries/stresses and focus on playing cricket, socialising and having fun!
Our Village contains a diverse range of people, and we help to grow our community by providing a safe place to help adults and children facilitate new relationships and build new friendships. New residents often gravitate towards the club in their early days of moving to Silverdale and comment how the people they meet at the cricket club help them to integrate more quickly into the local community.
We offer the club for hire for a small fee for private functions as well as for children’s parties, and we have ample parking on site. The well stocked bar is always open on match days, and our picnic tables are well used during the season.
The club sponsors other activities and in recent times has been twinned with villages in Africa to help provide new loo facilities, as well as sponsoring Cricket Caps for Local School trips abroad.
For many years the club hosted the Friends of Chernobyl’s Children at no cost over the summer. This fantastic charity engaged local families in Silverdale to host a child in their homes for the duration of their stay, escaping the desperate conditions in Belarus after the nuclear disaster in April of 1986.
Our club gave them the facilities to allow the children to be fed, play and learn in a safe environment whilst the fantastic volunteers organised medical checks and support to help them overcome their personal challenges. FOCC continues its work today.
We have well established links with our local Silverdale Primary school and members of the club visit the school to help deliver cricket training sessions throughout the year.
We host both All Stars and Dynamos Junior cricket and have also launched Under 9 and under 11 teams in successive seasons to maintain the progress of the village children throughout their physical development.
Our new changing and additional toilet facilities will enhance our players, supporters and visitors experience of the club. The new roof will keep everything dry...
How you can play your part
There are four simple ways to help us reach our target, and make this project a reality.
1. Make a pledge. Don’t delay if you’re going to support us because momentum is key to our success! Don't forget your pledge could be worth double !!
2. Spread the word. Share our project on your social media pages and tell the world to get behind us! The more people we reach, the more support we will get.
3. Offer rewards. Get involved if you are a local business by donating things we can offer to our supporters. We will give you a shout out!
4. Fundraise for us. If you want to run your own fundraiser – maybe a sponsored activity or similar – use the 'contact project' button at the top of our page to let us know. Setting up your own page only takes a few minutes and you won’t need any bank details. Just a fun idea!