Summer Sports - Cricket
investment from club funds, a new shower and changing block, with full disabled access, was constructed over the winter of 2008-09. This facility will be a huge benefit to the club and will also provide a focus for local girls and disabled cricket and a base for district age group squads. The club continues to move forward,
improving facilities and access, with recently secured funding from Sport England for mobile covers, and from the Local Initiatives Fund to replace the doors and windows around the old pavilion. Future plans include a fully enclosed practice facility, replacement of the machine shed and the acquisition of an Auto-Roller and spiker to support ground maintenance. “As you might imagine, we run a very tight ship for a club fielding three senior sides and four junior age groups,” explains Eddy. “When it comes to budgets, I make a suggestion to the management committee at the end of each year and, thankfully, they usually approve it. You can’t ask for too much, but it’s vital to spend all of what is offered sensibly. Capital items are difficult at the moment because we are still paying off a short term loan for the very high-spec modern changing block.” “With our seven sides, plus Kwik cricket
on Friday nights, we are a pretty busy club. Amazingly, and to their shame, Lancaster University and the University of Cumbria have abandoned their cricket facilities, so the students hire our surface on Wednesday afternoons for the BUCS competition. Lancaster Royal Grammar School also use our ground when they are stretched in their fixture list and all their squares are in use. We were a host ground for the National RGS festival last year and were in contention to entertain the MCC against a Palace Shield representative side next year.” “We have hosted Palace Shield cup finals on a few occasions, which are great because the travelling support always makes for a big crowd and an atmosphere. Lancashire have used our ground for district junior matches and senior disabled cricket,” continues Eddy.
50 PC DECEMBER/JANUARY 2014
“We have full wheelchair changing facilities and access, and a match pitch can be arranged alongside one of the artificial pitches to make wheeling/ running easier. Our best community use is for the local council’s Primary Schools Kwik Cricket festival.” “There are two adjacent grounds to ours; Westgate CC and Bare CC of the Westmorland League. On the finals day, there can be twelve games going on at once and twenty or more teams in attendance - a brilliant advert for sports participation.” Torrisholme’s ground sits just six
metres above sea level, on one of the biggest tides in the UK, peaking at over ten metres. High spring tides and rain sodden ground do not always sit easily together, so Eddy explains that September and March can be “quite interesting” if the weather is very wet. “We are very free draining, on silt with some gravel and sand below, so that helps,” he added. “We now have Stuart Canvas roll on covers which are a huge improvement on the heavy sheets we used to use. Not only are we playing on decks with moisture I can control now, the biggest advantage of these covers is that pitches do not get destroyed when used in wet weather. I can reuse a surface many more times, and we can host more games and of a higher standard.” With the exception of occasional player volunteers and regular help from the Chairman, Eddy works alone. “I used to take a student from the local Grammar School on work experience in May, but that has all stopped now, which is a shame. They sent aspiring cricketers and they used to learn a lot more about the game than just batting, bowling and fielding.”
At just shy of three acres, the site is
used exclusively for cricket. The square has up to three junior decks and up to eleven senior decks; “if I count the eighteen feet practice pitch at one end,” states Eddy.
In addition, there are two artificial pitches either end of the square with roll on cages. “On training nights we can
safely run both nets at the same time. There are plans afoot for a fixed three or four lane cage off the field, but I’d prefer some investment in plant before that. I’m in the queue,” says Eddy with a grin. “The field has long square boundaries, but is a little short if you’re hitting straight. From batsman to the rope, a straight hit is only 65 yards at each end, so the sightscreens are ‘on the field’.” “Rain and wind are the biggest
problems, especially rain,” bemoans Eddy. “We are in one of the wetter parts of the country, after all. In all honesty, we could use a bit more frost. I find it’s a great decompactor of the square. I really like an early hard frost, as long as the renovations have germinated and matured, of course! Snow is rarely a problem, even though we are in the rainshadow of the Cumbrian fells, the direction from where all the snow comes from.” “Where the weather is concerned, I try to be aware in advance and act accordingly. After basic bodily functions, the first thing I do in the morning is check the BBC, the Met Office and Rain Today on the internet. The last thing I do before turning the light off at night is the same. I’m a weather junky!” “We have high trees on the eastern side of our ground, so about a quarter of the outfield can be in shade or will keep dew for a long time early and late in the season. That portion is prone to moss as well.”
Whilst Eddy, in the main, works alone - he tends to do most of the science himself - there are plenty of local groundsmen to confer with, and most are “very helpful and friendly,” he says. “We do a lot of commiserating because of some of the ‘exciting’ weather in the Morecambe Bay area. One of the umpires affiliated to the club, Malcolm Porter, is the head groundsman at a local college and has vast experience. I am hoping to arrange some cross pollination of expertise and facilities this winter between him and, possibly, Morecambe Football Club.”
“Some of the necessary machinery is way out of our financial reach and, as we
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