Cricket club counting cost of Ciara: Bridgeholme Cricket Club is counting the cost of being flooded again, but this time it is worse than ever, according to groundsman Keith Hudson.
The club’s Eastwood ground has been flooded several times in recent years, but it has been left in a horrendous state by Storm Ciara over the weekend.
Cricket club counting cost of Ciara
Keith said: “It’s the biggest flood in the club’s history.
“It’s seriously bad. The hardest thing is what do we do now? How do we put this back together again?
“We’re reputed as one of the most beautiful cricket grounds in Yorkshire, we’ve won awards for how beautiful it is. There’s not many cricket clubs that win a Yorkshire in Bloom award.
“It was bad in 2015, but we put in place all these things to prevent it, like a river wall.
“But this has just flattened it. The wall’s still intact but it’s completely flattened it.
“It’s unbelievable. I live right next to the ground so I could see it happening thinking ‘that’s going to go’ and ‘that’s going to go’.
“I’ve been groundsman for 35 years, and I’ve lived here since 1963, and I’ve never seen anything like it.
“The back of our street was awash with mud and the retaining wall at the bottom of the street was completely flattened.
“Pictures don’t do it justice.
Keith says the club, on Halifax Road in Todmorden, is used by all sorts of people in the community for dog walking, playing sports and children riding bicycles.
“Last time (in 2015) I was there every day for two months. There’s no easy way out of it,” Keith added.
“God knows how much it’s going to cost. Last time it cost £20,000 but you could maybe multiply that by five this time.
“We’ve been told we’ll get some funding from Sport England, the ECB and the YCB but I don’t think there’s enough money out there.
“It’s a mess.”
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