OPENING FOREWARD

This brochure is compiled not only to mark the opening of our new pavilion but to put account some of the ‘ups and downs’ of Blackley Cricket Club.

The seeds of this pavilion were sown one Sunday morning in March 1972 when pre-season preparation revealed holes in the floor of the visitors changing room. Ripping up the floor boards shoed serious deterioration and dry rot in the joists. Deeper and more detailed inspection of the building proved that the deficiency and weaknesses would require at least £1000 to remedy. A meeting of the Executive Committee was called and subsequently their recommendations that a Building Fund be started to provide a new pavilion was put to the General Committee and accepted. As to the changing room with no floor, a couple of Sundays later, a few of the lads dressed in ‘old togs’ and sporting shovels, Wellington boots and trowels, arrived to mix concrete and fill in the ‘hole’.

Almost as it to confirm the decision of a new pavilion, during that summer, panelling in the tearoom (a wood hut purchased as army surplus at the end of the 2nd World War) came away to show wet rot in the supporting timbers. So a new pavilion grew to a larger building putting all the amenities under one roof.

The original price for the project was £2500 but overtaken by the now common word ‘inflation’ this soon grew to £5000, thus putting our original ideas will beyond our means. Quotations and estimates followed for a less ambitious project and it was finally settled that we purchase two prefabs second hand and erect them on a concrete bases as one building.

Enquires to the strength and stresses and strains of this were made and assurances given by the suppliers ‘The West Midland Construction Co. Ltd’ that there was no problem. So in the summer of 1976 the foundations and base were laid, ready for the erection of the concrete slabs at the end of the cricket season.

Worried about the possibilities of gales and bad weather the committee decided to make enquires about paying for the construction. The suppliers of the buildings provided the names of a team who undertook erection work for them. Thus believing erectors who were handling the building constantly would be the best able to do the job they were assigned at a cost of £250 for a weeks work.

The men arrived at the beginning of September and in seven days we were looking at a completed shell. Work then began on the dividing walls inside the building and the glazing of windows, and teams of between six and ten of our members gave up their weekends to this effort. All went well until a high wind in late October ripped off several sheets of asbestos from the roof. Investigating the cause showed that they had been nailed into position instead of being bolted. Undaunted, however, the lads rallied and decided to put o a timber roof using the floorboards supplied with the buildings. For weekends in the rain and cold winds they laboured fighting the elements to get the place watertight, covering the timber with waterproof felt.

Continued