Dear all,
How you can support new static nets at the club just by taking a survey?
I hope you're as excited as I am about the coming summer. We'll soon be sharing some pre-season plans with you, but first I'd like to talk about this year's plans to redevelop our static nets at the ground, and rebuild our second astro surface. We will be needing your help in two ways! First, we're looking for your vocal support in this, helping us to make a case now for the grants that we are aiming to use to fund most of this development. Later, we'll be asking for any material support you might be able to give, as part of a crowdfunder to come from April.
Please read on, and then please go to
this link to complete a short survey about what benefit our nets build this could bring you - it should take you about 5 minutes, and your support might make the difference between a major grant, or us needing to find more money from club funds.
Our static nets
Anyone who's played in them will know that our current static nets are increasingly worn, and that far from calming down in their old age, the bounce can be pretty dangerous against quicker bowling. Our seniors don't use these nets anymore, and increasingly the same applies to the quicker bowling in the youth section. The nets are based on concrete which means that there's no drainage and so the bounce dies after it's rained, and they were battered by storms a year ago such that the cage is listing and has missing connections. And they've been misused at times by people wearing spikes meaning that the carpet's ripped.
For all these reasons, we need a new net facility. We're planning on building a new, enclosed facility, which beyond improving the experience and use, brings extra benefits in security. We've got quotes for this, and we know it won't be cheap, and we're currently building our application for a grant with Veolia for a large portion of the ask. These kind of grants set a lot of store by support from membership and the local community, and that's why we're asking you to fill out the survey in the next couple of weeks. They also include a focus on biodiversity, and a successful grant might include additional work on the natural environment (and hence this question as part of the survey!).
Grants won't be able to cover all the funding, and we'll be kicking off a crowdfunder in April looking to make sure we can make this happen. Please do look out for this - and please do help as much as you can when it arrives.
Our second match astro
Our second non-grass pitch at the seafront end of the ground has been used for years to support junior matches and W10 cricket. It's over 20 years old now, and again it's desperately in need of replacement - the bounce is very uneven. This year, with the youth section growing, we'll be needing to use the second astro for matches up to U13 tier 2, so it's becoming more important that we have a decent strip. And in future, we'll be looking to grow girls' cricket to include U11 and U13 teams in addition to our U16 team which was new last year. That growth is going to need more pitch capacity at the ground.
It's a like-for-like replacement, but we'll also be rotating the pitch to lie southwest to northeast. That's going to result in a better use of space in that part of the ground, such that we can more easily run 2 U13 matches at St Helens. Not only that, but it also aligns it better for the evening sun (it's currently east-west), and with the prevailing wind: parents of our U9s who have seen a Friday match with a crosswind will have seen our bowlers struggling to control swing beyond anything Jimmy Anderson could dream of.
We're currently also applying for grants for the second astro through the ECB, and we're ambitiously aiming to get approval and build before the start of the season.
I'll be in touch again with more ahead of the season, but thanks for your time on this and I hope you can help,
All the best,
Matt Shaw
Chairman, Portsmouth Cricket Club