They've played cricket at Broadwater for 254 years - and aren't ready to stop yet

Robin, tell us a little of the history of Broadwater CC...

Broadwater CC, the unknown gem of Worthing, was formed in 1771. Cricket was recorded as being played on Broadwater Green as early as the 1720s, so the formation of 'Broadwater Cricket Club' in 1771 was significant - with our first recorded game being against the gentlemen of Henfield on June 13, 1771 (as per per the Sussex Weekly Advertiser, June 17, 1771).

Interestingly, Broadwater Cricket club is arguably the first sporting organisation to coin the word ‘club’ in its moniker.

We are among the ten longest-serving cricket clubs who have stayed in the same location in the world! While our achievements do not equate to various more fashionable clubs across Sussex, in the last 15 years, BCC have won the Sussex Invitation League a few times – the last success was followed by our promotion into the Sussex County League for the 2017 season.

Our juniors section’s under-12s won the Sussex Cricket Festival in 2012, but since then the section has been subject to significant restructure, and since 2021 we have been focusing our efforts on supporting state school kids between eight and 15 enjoying free cricket sessions every Wednesday evening through the summer; for free.

Tell us about all your current teams...

Nowadays we have three senior league XIs playing through the various tiers of the Sussex Leagues. We have junior leagues sides at U11, U13 and U14 in the West Sussex Junior League. We also have a friendly U10 side and the Broadwater CC Sunday Allstars, playing occasional Sunday friendlies.

We have our first ever ladies U18 Sussex pathway player, as well as a number of U10-U12 Sussex pathway players. We are so proud of the role we play in encouraging juniors cricket for state school kids, in the most prominent place to promote cricket in the area, Broadwater Green.

What are the challenges facing the club at the moment? What do you need to do to keep the club going?

The club is non-profit, continuing to exist because of the great work from the army of volunteers we have, coupled with the support of parents and local businesses.

However our facilities are in need of a significant overhaul - and without funding from the ECB or National Lottery. Sadly, we cannot secure additional funding to improve the facility without what is known as 'security of tenure' - basically a lease of some kind.

Over the past ten years the club has been working with the council to arrange this. However our current difficulty is that the only leasing arrangement available to us is what is known as a fully repairing lease - which means the tenant has to be responsible for the physical upkeep of the property itself. So our old cricket club (that has no serious war-chest of capital to tap into) could become liable to bring a rundown property up to scratch.

We have a facility that (in terms of footprint) is far smaller than other clubs across Worthing, and is in a condition far worse than any other cricketing facility in the Worthing area, and also has no serious means of revenue generation because of its size – hence our dependency on the spiritual home of The Cricketers for the past 175 years!

The structure is seriously sub-standard, facilities internally are not in the greatest of condition, and we are trying to utilise as much as we can with minimal resources.

We had some time walking the local MP Tom Rutland around the premises last week and talking him through the positive conversations we are holding with the council, but we are trying to put ourselves in a position to improve the facility and attract the next generation of cricketers from this community.

We need to improve the facility critically. We also need to be in a position to bring the facility up to scratch and secure tenure to enable a significant fundraising effort to create a juniors’ hub of cricket for the Worthing area.

We are progressing very positively but there is still so much more to do. We are constantly on the lookout for local businesses who would be keen to support our band of plucky volunteers spreading the word of the beautiful game to the local community; and we also need to influence support from the local authority to enable them to support bringing the pavilion up to a basic state of repair – so we can take it off their hands and create a next generation cricketing hub fro kids of all backgrounds, for the next 300 years.

How can people help you and get involved?

Local businesses or willing volunteers / tradesmen who can help with what we’ve outlined above can get in touch at [email protected] or via our socials. Juniors can turn up each Wednesday at 5.15pm to get their first taste of this glorious game.

We also heard from Barney Spencer, the club’s juniors co-ordinator...

Barney said: “We are one of many clubs in the area and whereas all clubs strive to get the best junior players and compete at the highest level, we have a slightly different MO.

"An important part of what we do is to try and get boys and girls involved and playing who’d never have thought about playing cricket. We equally want success for our juniors and strive for each team to complete at the highest level – but if we can get one or two kids playing cricket who’d never have considered it previously, our job is done.”