Stoke Nayland Cricket Club receives funding for critical kit

NZCT has granted $5,773 to Stoke Nayland Cricket Club in Nelson for new cricket balls.

Club Manager Brendan Hodgson said, "Our club has grown rapidly, expanding from twenty-five to more than one hundred and twenty members over the past few years. With this growth comes added costs. Maintaining equipment that we have purchased without funding support in the past adds up to a considerable sum."

"Each season, cricket balls are a massive cost, with a match ball for our Premier team being well over $100 and only useful for one match. Over the course of a twenty-five week season, with a number of teams on the park each week, this is no small expense."

" This financial support from NZCT will enable us to keep subscription costs down and get more members of the local community involved, from our juniors who are bowling and hitting a ball for the first time, right through to our regular social cricketers. It means we can keep cricket accessible to everyone in our area and hopefully also increase participation."

The Stoke club dates back to 1904 and has a long and storied history. A merger with Nayland College in the 1980s saw the name change to Stoke-Nayland. The range of our youth and adult teams include participants from ages five to sixty.

We currently deliver in-school cricket awareness sessions to eight local schools, while also facilitating their participation in club games. This takes a lot of pressure off the schools themselves to organise teams, uniforms, and gear, and provides expert coaching to future generations of players.