Nets Project 2026

The club’s existing 3 concrete and matting nets behind the pavilion were inaugurated in 2008 in memory of John MacDonald.  Though most of our current members never knew John, those of us who did remember him as the “father” of Blackheath Cricket Club who, amongst other things, launched our original junior section.  He was a highly enthusiastic coach of young players and always a great believer in net practice!

Those nets have served us well over the past 18 years, during which time they have been used by many hundreds of cricketers – young and old, male and female.  However, over the past few seasons, they have begun to deteriorate and the replacement of the batting mats and shock-pads a couple of years ago has not remedied the problem.  The club committee has therefore decided that it is essential that they are replaced with a new, ECB approved 3-bay net system at the end of this season.

After a great deal of research and obtaining detailed quotations from no fewer than 5 potential contractors, we’ve now decided on a system provided by Exclusive Leisure (see mock-up above).  This is an excellent quality and great value system with minimal maintenance requirements, which comes highly recommended by a range of previous customers, several of whom we’ve contacted directly.  We’re confident that it will provide a superb facility for the club for many years to come.

However, great value though it is, the proposed system (like all the ECB approved options) is expensive.  We're optimistic that we’ll receive substantial grant funding, and applications for this are already underway.  But these will not cover all the cost by any means, and we'll therefore need our own fundraising campaign as well.  The centrepiece of this will be this year’s major fundraising ball – “the New Ball” – on Saturday 13 June.  There will be lots of information about this over the coming weeks and tickets will go on sale on Sunday 19 April. 

To bring the project to fruition will require a big effort from a lot of people – including not just assistance with the ball but with the project itself, e.g. planning applications and enabling works.  We’ve already had several generous offers of help of different kinds (including from the club’s lead sponsor Seymours, and from Culinary Concepts, who have both agreed to support the New Ball in different ways).  Future progress reports will keep everyone up to date with how things are going and will fully acknowledge the assistance we’ve received, as well as asking for more help in different ways. 

Please do help us out if you can, as this is truly a project for the benefit of everyone in the club.