Hampshire area grassroots cricket clubs receive over £500,000 to keep them going during lockdown

The majority of that cash has come via the government’s Small Business Grant Scheme which awards £10,000 to businesses which occupy a property - either owned or rented - and receive a form of rate relief.

At present, 45 clubs affiliated to the Hampshire Cricket Board have applied and successfully received their money. More clubs have applications pending.

To receive the money, clubs have to apply to the local authority they fall within. There are 14 covering Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.

Of those, 11 have so far paid out grants - the only ones that haven’t are Portsmouth, Southampton and Eastleigh.

In addition, 29 clubs - 23 in Hampshire itself - have received grants from Sport England’s emergency community fund.

The fund - worth £20m nationally - was launched at the end of March, shortly after lockdown was imposed, as a rapid response to the pandemic.

The fund provides awards from £300-£10,000 to clubs and community organisations to help them with any financial distress. It was part of an initial £195m support package from Sport England to the sport and physical activity sector.

Hampshire CB affiliated clubs have so far banked £57,220 from the Sport England fund - taking the overall money that 72 clubs have received to £507,220.

The smallest amount any one club has banked is several hundred, while the largest is £8,000.

Hampshire CB’s cricket development manager Simon Jones said: ‘The Sport England fund is not really for lost income, it’s for unrecoverable outgoings from April 1 to July 1 - bills, insurance etc.’

Not every grassroots sports club can apply for a Small Business Grant, but the government have recently unveiled another fund - the Local Authority Discretionary Grants Fund. According to the government website, this ‘supports small and micro businesses that are not eligible for other grant schemes.’

Jones - a member of the Portsmouth CC - said the cash amounts previously mentioned are the ones the Hampshire CB have been told about. There could well be others.

The HCB sent out a series of 13 questions to 169 affiliated clubs between May 1-11 via Google Form.

Those were clubs who have a team in either or both of the Southern Premier League and the Hampshire League.

They received responses from 126 clubs, who between them have 294 teams playing SPL or HL cricket. In all, there are 359 teams in those two leagues.

Not all clubs who play in the Hampshire League are based in the county - there are a handful of clubs from Dorset (previously in Hampshire prior to the 1974 boundary changes) and others in Wiltshire, Sussex, Berkshire and the Isle of Wight.

In 1992, only 17 out of 191 HL teams were from outside the county - 8.9 per cent.

By 2014 that had gone up to 50 out of 335 teams - 14.9 per cent.

As of last year, there were 62 teams out of 300 - another rise to 20.7 per cent.

In addition to discovering the £500,000 plus awarded to clubs, the Hampshire CB found that 103 league clubs use at least one local authority ground. Within the Hampshire boundary itself, that figure is 85.

Of the replies, 16.3 per cent of clubs have their pitches maintained by an outside organisation - such as a district, parish or unitary authority, or a school.

That is topical information as some councils have been unable to maintain pitches during lockdown.

‘There is a varying state of pitches,’ said Jones. ‘I know the Portsmouth area pitches are in a reasonable state, but the Havant authority have not been able to maintain theirs.’

Of the clubs who were not responsible for pitch upkeep, 68.3 per cent said their pitches have been maintained during lockdown. A further 19.8 per cent said they hadn’t and the rest (11.9 per cent) had some pitches maintained and others not.

‘The vast majority of clubs these days have more than two teams,’ said Jones, ‘so they need a second venue.

‘For example, Portsmouth 1sts and 2nds play at St Helens but the club’s third team share a pitch at Farlington with Purbrook.’

Of the 359 teams across the SPL and HL, only 130 are with clubs with only one or two teams. The remaining 229 belong to clubs with three or more teams. There are 24 clubs with four teams and another 30 with three.

In 1992 there were only 10 clubs with more than three teams.

‘There’s been a big trend in bigger clubs,’ said Jones ‘We’ve seen clubs merging due to a lack of players or volunteers.

‘Our biggest club is St Cross (in Winchester) - they have eight teams, six men’s and two women’s.’

Clubs were also asked if they were experiencing cashflow problems, or were expecting to experience them in the coming months.

Unsurprisingly, the answer was a big ‘yes’ - but there were a number of steps taken by clubs to mitigate the risk of collapse.

They included cancelling overseas players’ deals, receiving grants, stopping all non-essential expenditure, support of sponsors, asking for donations or existing membership fees/subscriptions.

Clubs were also asked how long they feel they would need to be ready to play again once the ECB give recreational cricket the green light.

Replies ranged from immediately to four weeks, with the average response being a fortnight.

Clubs were also asked if a shortened half-season was possible, what would they like to see. Remember, this question was asked when the ECB’s possible return to league action was July 1 and not August 1.

Of the replies, 74 per cent (105 clubs) said existing fixtures should be honoured, 14.2 per cent (20) said there should be promotion and relegation, and 59.6 per cent (84) said there should be no promotion/relegation and just friendlies instead.

Six clubs - 4.3 per cent - said they didn’t think it was worth playing any cricket at all.

Another 12 - 8.5 per cent - had no preference.