Essential New Cricket Nets at Sanderstead CC

Aim

We urgently need new cricket nets for our growing club & junior section so we can practice, improve our play, & make our community stronger.

About Sanderstead CC

Sanderstead CC is a "village" cricket club in an urban environment just a couple of miles south of Croydon in Surrey. We provide competitive and recreational cricket for over 200 members aged from 7 to 75 across 5 Saturday teams, 2 Sunday teams and a growing number of junior teams from Under 7s to U16s and a Development XI. We recently launched a thriving girls junior section with the aim of starting a ladies team in the near future. We also provide our beautiful ground and facilities to the Surrey Seniors CC for over-60s and over-70s cricketers.

Why We Need Your Help

Running a club of this scale and ambition is, as ever, reliant on the efforts and contributions of our members. We are not a wealthy club and our income comes mainly from memberships, bar takings and social fund-raising events. COVID has made such things very difficult as the reduced 2020 season and restrictions on social gatherings have taken their toll. As a result, big - but essential - capital projects can not be afforded from club funds alone.

What Will the Funds Raised Be Used For?

Our existing nets are no longer usable due to age and wear & tear. In order to maintain and build our playing quality, and encourage more local youngsters into cricket at Sanderstead, we desperately need new and improved net facilities and, ideally, a new electronic scoreboard.  By improving our practice and play, we will improve the quality of the cricket people see, whether they visit our lovely ground in person, or watch on YouTube. New nets will cost approximately £25,000 and a new scoreboard a little over £2,000. We have a small amount set aside, but with COVID hitting us hard, alongside many other clubs, we struggled with our usual fund-raising activity as we couldn't hold social events. Accordingly, we are aiming to raise at least £20,000 from a reward-based crowdfund.

Here's an example of the quality of cricket nets we would be investing in:

How We Help the Wider Cricketing World!

We launched a YouTube channel, (click here SandersteadCCTV), in 2017 and have discovered an unexpected  following of fans all around the world who love to see grass roots cricket being played by ordinary people - just like them! We have grown to over 18,000 YouTube subscribers and on average a typical match highlights film will be viewed by over 20,000 people in over 40 countries from the UK to Australia, Poland to Panama, Sweden to South Africa. Fans tell us how much they enjoy seeing club cricket and how they are inspired to start playing again. In turn, we have been inspired to encourage other clubs to launch their own channels and join us in spreading the idea of local cricket clubs building thriving local communities for the benefit of all - wherever they are!

Here's one of hundred's of comments on YouTube from people encouraged by SandersteadCCTV to play the great game...

Helping People Through the Lockdown

We were both surprised and delighted at how our videos helped to entertain people when the COVID lockdown hit us in March 2020. With cricket cancelled until late July, we unwittingly provided a welcome distraction for many people. Not only did hundreds of people tell us how helpful our videos were, we even got written about - here's a lovely piece in the New Statesman about how a journalist got over COVID with the help SandersteadCCTV. Click here for the article.

Next Steps

We will publicise the great rewards we have on offer during February and into March with a view to attracting the support of our members, friends and fans wherever they are. If successful, we expect to have the nets built and ready for the start of the season in May, if COVID allows!

We want to give value for money and so we have created a number of rewards that give people opportunities to show their support for Sanderstead CC and be recognised and thanked not just by the Sanderstead members in our pavilion, but also globally on our YouTube channel. 

Please help us if you can, so we can keep our club and community strong despite the financial impacts of COVID.

Thanks You! And if you made it this far, here's a film of some of the fun things that happen at Sanderstead CC...

This project successfully funded on 25th March 2021