these Open Championship Clubs choose to relief grind - Pitchcare

afford to anyway.
Funding for equipment is very hard to
obtain. In the past two years, I have
managed to obtain two grants through the
small grants section of Sport England,
which have enabled the purchase of a new
roller, mobile covers and some colts
training equipment. I had heard a
rumour that they were cutting such
funding for cricket clubs, but fortunately it
seems those rumours were untrue.
But, obtaining grants for machinery,
other than rollers or mobiles, seems
impossible. In fact, obtaining grants from
anywhere for machinery is very difficult. I
know I have my groundsman’s hat on
here, but what is the most important
thing for a cricket club? It has to be the
surface we play on, doesn’t it?
To have the chance to obtain a grant
from Sport England, you need to be a
Clubmarked club. This, in itself, costs
clubs money to obtain. For example, to
obtain the prerequisite number of coaches
as laid down by the ECB means, first of
all, finding people prepared to do the
courses and then the money to pay for
them to go on the courses. I think the
guidelines for the number of coaches are
one coach per eight kids. That means,
with 250 colts, a club needs around 25/30
coaches. Cost of a coaching course is
about £170. I know the ECB can’t fund
every club in the country, but is there any
way they could make these courses
cheaper by increasing their funding of the
courses, making them cheaper for the
clubs? That way, every club that puts
someone on a course would benefit. Or
perhaps the local county club could dip
their hands in their pockets, especially if
they are the recipient of Test match
income. The cost and degree of
subsidising of the County trailers for
example, seems to vary somewhat over
the country.
As I said at the beginning of this little
diatribe, club cricket is vital to the success
Cricket Cages
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of the professional game, right up to the
very top echelons. With even less cricket
being played in state schools than ever
(we have successive Governments of all
persuasions to thank for that), club cricket
has to work hard to ensure that, in the
years to come, there are still some players
playing for England that were actually
born here!
As groundsmen, we have a crucial role
to play in this, not just in preparing the
best surfaces we can, but also to slowly but
surely educate and inform our committees
and club members of what is involved in
producing our pitches and outfields. It is
no good just moaning about the lack of
respect and understanding our industry
seems to suffer from, we have to try and
do as much as possible to change this,
and each and every groundsperson, from
the village club to the Test arena, needs to
be proactive in this objective.
MARK HARROD 2012
CRICKET
EQUIPMENT
Mark Harrod offers a
wide selection of cricket
products suitable for
schools, colleges and
sports clubs.
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Call Mark on 01502 710039 or visit markharrod.com
FEBRUARY/MARCH 2012 PC 83