The Ellesmere Port social club under the guise of Burmah; Burmah Castrol and laterally The Groves has seen an association with Cricket for nearly 50 years at various standards and including various age groups.

The Crickets Section has always strived for a diverse, inclusive and community based approach, all are welcome. The Groves Cricket Section as we are now called is the last Bastian of Cricket in the local Ellesmere Port area. In the last 10 years the area has seen 4 clubs containing 7 teams, plus midweek and cup cricket almost completely disappear with just one club and one team remaining, the Groves. It is a sad indictment on cricket plus the lack of involvement from schools with Cricket not being on the curricula but we continue to fight and annually it is a battle, to maintain the section having almost disappeared entirely 4 years ago. We are gradually, but it is a very slow process trying to rebuild not just the section but what we can offer to the community. During this season, were due to commence and participate in supporting the ECB’s All Stars programme and although nothing is guaranteed we believed this might be the start of the next phase of our sections cycle.

We are completely self-funded, we raise critical funds through playing members and the support of our extended cricketing family in supporting fundraising events. We also gratefully receive any sponsorship donations but this is not fixed amounts. We work on an annual budget year on year so our income is critical, as you can guess our cash situation is always a topic of conversation. All our equipment plus our square still needs to be maintained and looked after and with no income this will become increasingly difficult.

It is looking more and more likely that we will not see any competitive Cricket this year and hence the revenue that this would generate will be lost but cost of running the section for the season has already been and will continue to be paid out and this puts us in a precarious financial position. Under the circumstances it is difficult to arrange any fundraising event and as such we are asking for help?

We are not asking for much, just to be able to secure our financial status to enable us to provide Cricket to the community when we come out of this challenging period.