Stormy weather has left cricket clubs battling to be ready for new season

Another day, another Yorkshire cricket story, only this time it has nothing to do with events at Headingley and everything to do with a very different type of dark cloud.

Of the three storms to hit the UK over the past week – Dudley, Eunice and Franklin – it is Franklin that has done the most damage to clubs, due to the huge volume of rain that has barrelled down, especially in the north of the country, specifically in Yorkshire. Early Yorkshire club casualties include Bradford & Bingley, Ilkley CC, Olicanian, Horbury Bridge, Mytholmroyd, Bridgeholme and Greetland.

Horbury Bridge is entirely underwater, flooding on Sunday evening. The club president Danny Terry found out around midnight when the landlord of the pub that sits on the corner of the cricket field phoned him to say the River Calder had topped the bank and was flowing on to the field.

“It currently looks like a reservoir,” he says, “a metre of water over the entire playing surface. And the square is what we’re worried about most of all – the outfield is not a real concern. We spend a lot of money at the end of each season to make the square ready for the next season, doing the prep work, and now all that work and money has been written off. When the flood water recedes we’ll have to look at a recovery plan which will cost a considerable amount of money. We’re particularly worried about invasive plants, like moss, that come with the flooding.

“I’ve been involved in the club for more than 15 years and only in the last five years has the playing surface been underwater – this year and last year.”

Last year’s flood happened at around the same time, but the club started the season on the button thanks to Wakefield Metropolitan District council pumping the water