Financial Support for Sidley Cricket Club

Jamie Ramsden of Sidley Cricket Club recently spoke to the club and returned on Wednesday, 30^th November to be presented with a cheque for £1,000 towards their fund raising.

Sidley Cricket Club was founded in 1901 and played at the Gullivers Ground in Sidley until the ground closed in 2013. Until then it had been a very successful club within the county with 80 adult and 60 junior members making up three regular Saturday teams; now most of the members have gone leaving a hardcore of 15 members who now play at Sandrock in Hastings. Despite their small numbers they are still able to encourage junior players to come along and they have some 30 to 40 youngsters aged 6 to 16 who play and are coached for free. The remaining members have been determined to return to Sidley, their home village, and have been actively working to achieve that. They have now secured agreement with Rother District Council to use St May’s Recreation Ground in Sidley. So far the club have raised £20,000 which has enabled the laying of a new cricket square at the recreation ground. Their target is now to raise £500, 000 for a new purpose built club house on site but first they must arrange temporary accommodation so they can continue to host matches. Jamie said, “I’m so grateful for the money; we are determined to meet our target and I won’t rest happy until we have our new building and we can fill it with new and past members to celebrate its opening. We are so happy to be back in Sidley and we can continue to bring along local youngsters to enjoy the game.”