Case Study

Grant to Towcestrians Cricket Club

Background

As you know the village cricket club merged with Towcestrians recently, there are a number of changes this has led to as the new larger team has additional needs – a junior section and 3 senior teams on a Saturday.

The ground at Greens Norton continues to be needed for matches and some of the junior teams now play and practice there.

The teams have been entered into the Northants County League in 2024 and this means that the facilities need to meet some different standards, for Greens Norton the major shortfall was sight screens.

Specific needs

The ground at Greens Norton is tight for adult cricket with the boundary at either end just about at the minimum limits, in order to fit screens (which are quite wide so they don’t blow over!) it was necessary to remove overgrown bushes and a large tree stump, the cost for this work came in at about £2,000 – we also needed to source and buy a sight screen for each end which was around £2,400.

The club is always short of capital although we manage year on year accrual of significant sums is hard with the need to do annual wicket renovation and lots of kit needed. In addition we have started a new project to build a new ground at the Towcestrians site so money always in short supply.

The Grant Process

The new Village Trust made the process of grant application as easy as they could, although we needed to provide evidence that the club was sustainable long term and that a reasonable proportion of players came from the local area, documentation was simple and the committee followed up with questions but did not need us to meet them.

The grant we needed fell within the £5,000 maximum and our need was clear.

Outcomes

The ground works were commissioned by the Parish Council as the field is their land and this was completed in early February. We did need to do some work in seeding and flattening the area but we were able to order screens and these arrived late February. We just need the grass to grow before we can move them into place.

All in all the process was excellent and the outcome will be better cricket in 2024 (well hopefully!)