Sandyford Cricket Club’s original ground at Marlay Park was where the football AstroTurf pitch is. This is on the left hand side when you enter from the College Road entrance. We used to have a grass pitch at this location back in the 1990s. The council moved the cricket ground to its current location about 15 years ago. The old nets bay still exists at this location.
The current location was always supposed to be a temporary location. The aim was – almost 2 decades ago – to ultimately move the cricket ground to a final location. The Marlay Park Masterplan, and our own ground proposal document indeed describes such a final location for the cricket ground.
For almost a decade now, we have continued to be affected by the Longitude Festival. Each year, we have lost our ground for about 4-5 weeks due to longitude. But this year, the damage was so bad that we lost the ground for the entire season.
The club has grown and improved its cricket in the meanwhile. With the club looking at 4 teams next season, plus a youth section, the need for moving the cricket ground to a location where it won’t be affected by the Longitude Festival, and where the club can have adequate training and changing facilities has become more necessary than ever before.
Actions taken so far
- We have met with DLR County Council and Cricket Leinster representatives at the ground on multiple occasions.
- We have created a proposal for a new ground for Sandyford Cricket Club that is in line with the Marlay Park Masterplan. The plan has been presented to DLR County Council and to Cricket Leinster.
- We now await progress on either fixing up the current ground and ensuring that it remains unaffected by Longitude Festival in the future, or on the move to a location that will be away from locations used for Longitude Festival.
Updates
As there is progress, we will be adding posts about the progress and linking them here.
References
Current and future locations
