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Band of brothers making it a bay of plenty for Sewerby
AS cricket grounds go, Sewerby is not the easiest to find but when you do manage to get there – drive through the car park of the Ship Inn, arrive at the cliffs and turn left – you will never forget it.
One helpful local, pointing the way, said: "You can't miss the pavilion, it's like the Great Wall of China, it can be seen from outer space," and he was right. It is a remarkable tribute to the work of the club – six individuals in particular – that the pavilion was opened in 2007 and, instead of costing the projected 300,000, was completed for a fraction of that figure.
The views over Bridlington Bay make Sewerby one of the most scenic grounds in the country and their band of brothers, now the pavilion has been acknowledged as being among the best in the York Senior League, Scarborough Beckett League and the Derwent Valley League, in which the club's three senior teams compete, have turned their attention to a new project.
President Ken Saul is nominally the head of the six-man working party and he has taken the lead in obtaining agreement with neighbouring farmer Mick Wood to turn land adjoining the cricket field which had been fallow into a second ground, enabling the club to launch a fourth team and provide facilities for their 60-strong junior section. Typically, Sewerby have put action before words. Talks with Bridlington Council over developing the area are still in progress but the ground has been in use for cricket for the past two summers and now plans are well advanced for development.
Two static caravans have been used as changing rooms but the plan is for another pavilion – perhaps not quite as grand as the one completed in 2007 – and scorers' box to be ready for next season.
Lessons learned on their first project will speed the process – and keep costs to a minimum. "We are basically a group of six good workers who talk things through and decide on a majority vote what to do next," says Mr Saul of his team.
He was among the instigators of the plans for a new pavilion and, when it became clear that no funding would be forthcoming from the England and Wales Cricket Board or any other source within the game it was his group who pushed the project forward.
Local companies were approached to help with materials and the support was amazing – many providing goods at cost and some even conceding 100 per cent discounts.
But there was one major problem: "Believe it or not, we did not have a single tradesman among the members of the club," said Saul.
That shortcoming was solved when Peter Horobin, a newcomer to the East Coast from Nottinghamshire, walked along the cliff tops one day and fell into conversation at the cricket club. He was a bricklayer and was soon a key member of Mr Saul's team.
He is still there, enthusiastic as ever and looking forward to working on the new ground. "I've made more friends here than I did in 35 years living in Newark," he says.
The four others in the group are Roy Artley, Colin Dennis, John Brumpton and Pete Jefferson, who has added his skills as groundsman to his contribution to the working party.
The ECB finally made a contribution when the pavilion project was finished and
officials from Lord's were able to assess the benefit to junior cricket in the area but, the goodwill of local businesses apart, the bulk of Sewerby's funding comes from their annual gala on the last
Sunday in July, further evidence that, given the will, virtually anything is possible if the spirit is willing.
Nowhere does the spirit of cricket burn more fiercely than at the club just through the Ship's car park, with the panorama of Bridlington and the North Sea in front, the Georgian splendour of Sewerby Hall behind.
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Sunday 12 February 2012
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