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Last Update 7/8/2003
 
Save the Arns appeal
  
Success !
The clubs request for financial assistance with the drainage of the Arns for lottery funding through sportscotland has been successful. The information that Clackmannan County Cricket Club has been awarded the maximum award for the required work was intimated to the club by letter on Tuesday 5th August 2003 and by press release today, Thursday 7th August. The details of the grant and the work to be undertaken will be discussed at a meeting in the clubhouse at a time to be arranged this month (August). All members are requested to attend this meeting. Should you wish to be kept updated on the details of the meeting or if you cannot attend but wish to comment on the proposals please contact this site with your e-mail details. The club would like to thank all of the people and organisations who have supported our bid. More when we know. 7/8/2003

Anyone who knows the history of the Arns can say it isn't a naturally dry ground. The grounds is situation below the Arns pleasure ground escarpment, which rises to 200 feet in no time at all from river level. The ground is bordered by the A709 on one side and on the other by the main Alloa to Stirling rail line. Unfortunately both the railway and the pleasure grounds drainage has been neglected for a considerable time, while this is probable not the only cause of our problems it can't be helping. The Arns is also under-bored by old mine workings and has a less than free draining clay sub soil. These factors combine to make it a difficult, if attractive, position for a cricket ground. Over the years the club has carried out various schemes to improve the drainage of the ground with various degrees of success. However last seasons diabolical weather made the need for professional advice a must. That advice came in the form of surveys by the Sports Turf Research Institute and McGregor & McMahon, Aberdour the results indicated that the present drainage system could not be resurrected. This situation made unhappy reading but is basically due to multiple problems with size of pipe, silt blockage and breaks in the pipes, the only way forward is to totally renew the grounds drainage.
  The clubs fears concerning the cost of such scheme have been confirmed. The total cost of the works required are around £70,000 including the VAT. The finance required would be a huge burden for a large affluent club, for us it is a towering mountain to climb. The club, conscious of our history, the results achieved over the last few years in schools in the community, the fate of the other local clubs who have been lost to cricket, is keen to fight on and attempt to save the ground.  
The enormity of the task facing us has not passed us by. If all of our active non-junior members were to take an even share of the finance required they would each have to pay some £1400. If all of the people touched by our coaching schemes were included this would drop to around £150 each. A considerable sum for families in this area, and out of the reach of most.

 

Arns Drainage appeal

Target £74,000

Current Club Total

£
Aiming at the target.
The old scots saying of "every mickle mak's a muckle*" might be apt in our search for the cash. No stone will remain unturned (ah! see, more cliches than your average football report), as we search down the side of the sofa, plague our friends, businesses, charitable organisations and anyone who will listen or turn up to a fund raising event.
* Note; roughly translated this means that every small amount when added together will create a large quantity.

The funding front

Our appeal to the coalfields regeneration scheme has drawn a blank, since those in control of the fund do not see what the club does as affecting the mining community. Right enough, I don't suppose there are any miners children in Fishcross, Sauchie, Tullibody etc who get cricket coaching at the school.

The Arns funding plans in the junior section

The juniors are considering two schemes to raise funding to help the Save the Arns Appeal.

1. A sponsored cricket poem.

2. A personal run or wicket score target where every run scored or wicket taken by the junior member is sponsored at a suitable level. Checks are being undertaken to make sure that this does not make the juniors professional players!

Any other junior money raising schemes? We would be pleased to here them.