Barnard Castle
Barnard Castle
CRICKET CLUB
Barnard Castle CC is a club transformed. They are reigning champions
of the North Yorkshire & South Durham League, they have a thriving
social section, their ground has been developed beyond recognition
in ten years and they are at the hub of their community in the small
market town.
For years, the club tootled along,
an enduring part of the Barney story
certainly, but part of the league’s second
tier and with surroundings - 19th
century dressing rooms, a wooden hut
for a bar – to match.
“It is difficult to believe sometimes
how far we have come,” says club
chairman, David Sparrow. “If it is
a revolution it has been achieved
with good old-fashioned grit and
determination topped up with a good
deal of modern vision.
“The progress on and off the field
have been achieved together and have
been as important as each other. The
important thing now is that we keep
going, still striving to improve and
ensuring that the next generation has
something worth building on.”
The club was at a low ebb twenty
years ago. Formed in 1832 it had enjoyed
many triumphs but was held back by
the old rules of the NYSD League which
did not permit automatic promotion and
relegation. Barney often found it hard
to keep good players and as a result
stopped developing them for a while.
A determined effort to renew
organised youth coaching was the
starting point for everything that has
followed. It led to dozens of youngsters
who might not otherwise have played
the game being given the chance to take
it up. Several of them are now in the
triumphant first XI.
In turn that led to an influx of new
blood off the field, men and women
with drive who could see the potential
that the club had and were eager and
willing to develop it.
“None of it happened overnight,”
says Mr Sparrow. “But there was a
definite zeal there that things could be
done and they were. It helped no end
that there were maybe a dozen people
all with a quiet determination and often
with different skills in various fields.”
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