Photograph by Olwyn Hocking

Newcastle Cricket Club have won £66,000 to improve pavilion facilities, bringing the total amount raised for the club to more than a third of a million pounds.

Sport England has awarded 148 local sport centres £10 million of National Lottery funding, with Newcastle Cricket Club, located on Osborne Avenue, Jesmond, one of the recipients announced on October 27th.

Sport England’s Inspired Facilities fund – a funding commitment to grassroots sports launched in 2011 – is one part of the £350,000 raised by the Jesmond-based cricket club since 2006. This latest investment intends to improve community sports facilities that are outdated or in need of improvement.

Sport England’s Property Director, Charles Johnston, said: “The Inspired Facilities Fund has had a huge impact on grassroots sport across the country. Since 2011, we’ve invested £94 million into more than 1,800 projects to improve and refurbish sports clubs.” Sport England anticipates investing over £1 billion of National Lottery and Exchequer funding between 2012 and 2017 across the country.

The project will modernise all the first floor changing facilities at the 127-year-old ground, making them suitable for the wide range of people now taking part in sport at the club, and also improve energy efficiency. It follows a big increase in participation from juniors and also women players. The overall project will cost £80,000.

Newcastle Cricket Club co-chair Nick Humble has welcomed the investment in the clubs facilities, saying that “the Jesmond Ground has a wonderful heritage but this has meant the players have been using changing facilities which are now 50 years old.”

Labour MP for Newcastle East, Nick Brown, said: “This is great news. This latest successful bid by Newcastle Cricket Club reflects the significant work and effort that has been put in over the years to this much valued local facility.”

The Osborne Avenue cricket ground – where a young Sachin Tendulkar produced one of his legendary batting displays – has benefited significantly from fundraising and grant providers over the last few years.

Fundraising schemes since 2006 have helped enhance the club on and off the cricket pitch. Improvements that have already been made include installing a new state of the art digital scorebox, purchasing new essential cricket equipment and spending £120,000 on a new accessible entrance. The cricket club aims to continue improving to help benefit the wider community by upgrading its facilities.