Middleton Cricket Club’s future secured

The future of Middleton Cricket Club has been safeguarded for future generations.

Middleton-in-Teesdale Sports & Leisure, a voluntary community organisation, has secured a new 30-year lease for the land next to the village primary school that has been the site of the cricket pitch for almost half a century.

Durham County Council has agreed to lease the land following a consultation process.

Andy Mitchell, who is chairman of Middleton-in-Teesdale Sports & Leisure, says the decision is a huge boost for the cricket club.

“This gives us more freedom to apply for grants because we’ve got security over the land for the next 30 years,” he told the Mercury.

“It helps to protect the longevity of the cricket club.

“Everything that has been done on this cricket field has been done by the community and funded by the community,” he added.

“The players pay their subs, we get well supported in sponsorship through the community and people are brilliant locally – we’d be scuppered without them to be honest, so this lease will hopefully let us apply for funding grants.”

One priority for the cricket club is to replace the “temporary” pavilion that has been used by the players since the late 1970s.

“Utopia would be to get this pavilion replaced!” said Andy, who praised the community association’s honorary president Diana Currie for helping to secure the lease.

Dave Garth, Middleton Cricket Club’s tireless secretary and groundsman, remembers the existing pavilion being erected during a snowstorm in the late-70s.

“The pavilion was put up as a temporary structure almost 50 years ago,” he said.

“It was a second-hand site hut from Wade’s at Newton Aycliffe. They said, ‘You can have it provided you dismantle it and take it away’.”