Survival battle: Urgent plea to save club that has been 'important part of the Nidderdale community' since 1840
One of Nidderdale’s oldest cricket clubs which has been an important part of the community since at least the 1840s is in danger of folding.
With the new season fast approaching, Pateley Bridge Cricket Club has issued a warning that it is desperately short of players to continue its participation in the Nidderdale Cricket League, a division it founded.
Highlighting the causes of the club’s sad predicament, Robert Light, Secretary of Pateley Bridge Cricket Club, said it had lost a number of players in the last two years in a perfect storm of retirements, injury and people moving to other clubs.
But part of the problem also lies in underlying social trends in rural England, he added.
"There's a wider story to tell here about the loss of traditional rural communities with local school numbers propped up by children from outside the area and an increasing number of holiday homes,” said Mr Light.
The most recent figures available from 2021 showed only 24% of people living in the Nidderdale National Landscape were aged between 16 and 45, which is the prime age for playing recreational sport, a six per cent decline in just ten years.
But, during the same period, the percentage of people over 55 rose from 51% to 62%.
"We have always had difficulty attracting players from outside the area, which is hard to understand as the club is situated in beautiful countryside at the heart of the Nidderdale National Landscape, formerly Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty,” said Mr Light.
"This has meant we’ve always relied on our junior section to provide us with adult players.
"In recent years the majority of juniors have tended to drift out of the sport in their early teens and don’t play adult cricket.
"This is a situation most clubs find but it is particularly damaging to clubs like ours.”
As an important part of the community since Victorian times, bringing together generations of local families who have grown up playing for the club, the potential demise of Pateley Bridge Cricket Club would be a huge loss to the entire Pateley Bridge area.
Anyone who would like to join the club, and help keep it alive, should email [email protected] or call 07747697816.