STALYBRIDGE Cricket Club has got the town’s MP on board as it looks to raise money for new facilities.
The Gorse Hall Road club, which technically lies in Dukinfield, needs £150,000-£200,000 to construct a new pavilion for players.
Currently, they share the building alongside the clubhouse, meaning on occasion female players have to get changed in their car.
And the growth of the club, which now has eight sides, means the new building is needed if it is to go forward.
Jamie Brownhill, of Stalybridge Cricket Club, explained: “We’ve kind of outgrown what we have with junior cricket and ladies’ cricket.
“What we provide isn’t enough for all our members and we want to attract more from the community.
“We’ve had occasions when you have junior teams with girls and boys in them. Obviously, they can’t mix changing rooms.
“Unfortunately, the girls end up in the car, in the toilets and it’s a bit embarrassing sometimes when you must do that.
“We just haven’t got the facility, so that’s the main aim, to get the girls to be able to get changed in a safe environment.
“We’ve probably tripled our membership. We didn’t have a junior section, we didn’t have a ladies’ section – they all have to get changed somewhere.
“It’s got so popular, we’re at our limit.
“£150,000 to £200,000 it’s a lot of money. We’ve looked at cheaper options, cheap as possible but unfortunately this is the price of construction at the minute.
“We’ve been planning it for years and we’re probably about halfway there with our fundraising, looking at grants, looking at further fundraising anything we can do to be honest because we really want to get cracking at the end of the season.
“I’m sure there’s funds out there that Tameside have got, we’ll look at the Pride of Place funding, any other funding like that.”
Mr Reynolds examined Stalybridge CC’s proposals for the new facility and is ready to offer a helping hand when it comes to funding.
And he believes any new facility can go much further than just boosting the club.
He said: “The contribution clubs like Stalybridge CC make is massive and with sports clubs in particular, you need changing rooms that reflect that diversity and the capacity you need to do that because you don’t want to turn anyone away.
“This is a chance, to be frank. With some of the funding streams from the government, like Pride In Place, we’re getting a chance for a real potential upgrade across the whole borough.
“It’s quite exciting, but clubs must fulfil the criteria – are they open to the public, are they growing, are they inclusive, are they trying to get more people involved – which obviously has benefits well across recreation, health, people’s well-being as well?
“Where places have a strong record of that, I think that’s where public money should go and there’s some tremendous stuff going on across this entire borough in terms of involving people in sport, which perhaps in the past wasn’t always going to be available to them.
“We do incredibly well as a place for volunteers who are willing to put the time in because none of this works without volunteers. It’s a lot of work to run any organisation but certainly one with a lot of members.
“You want to be putting resource into those places to help these guys just do what they’re doing but have it available to a larger group of people.”