Warwickshire have identified the NatWest CricketForce weekend as the perfect chance for “one last push” in one of the most worthy and exciting initiatives in the whole of the county game.
For the last two years, the Bears have been working closely with the England and Wales Cricket Board to reclaim the old Mitchell and Butlers Ground in the Birmingham suburbs, which had fallen into disrepair since it was last used for league cricket in 1993.
Now a smart new pavilion has been built, the outfield is pristine and the relaid pitches, lovingly tended by the county’s stalwart groundsman Rob Franklin, will be ready to be used for the first time in junior cricket this summer.
But there is still a need for “a bit of a clear-up”, according to Franklin, who has been on the Edgbaston groundstaff for 45 years.
That’s where NatWest CricketForce comes in.
Several members of the Warwickshire squad will be joining Franklin, his staff and other club officials and supporters from Friday.
“We’re all really excited by the development at Portland Road, and NatWest CricketForce weekend will be the final push to get it ready for this summer,” says Martyn Dobson, Warwickshire’s community development manager.
“We need to clear up the hedges, and some debris from the old boxing club. We need some wire on the fences around the ground to stop the ball disappearing every time someone hits a four. Perhaps a lick of paint here and there as well.
"When cricket is staged here it will be a proud day for us all, and we think the redevelopment of the ground is going to provide a huge asset not only for Warwickshire but for the Birmingham community.”
That point is echoed by John Huband, one of the ECB’s Facilities and Development Managers, who is based at Edgbaston and steeped in Birmingham cricket.
“I played on the M&B ground many times myself, and it was heartbreaking to see what happened when the brewery closed and the site was sold,” he explained.
“The ground was left in disrepair, and they were playing football across the square – a square where Birmingham and District League world’s first cricket league matches were played for more than a century.
“The ground had to remain in sporting use, but the council had earmarked it for football. I said ‘We can’t have this’. We had long discussions with Persimmon and their property advisers GVA, who had bought the brewery site for development, and needed an anchor tenant who would develop the ground properly.
“Then Sport England came on board and Colin Povey [Warwickshire’s chief executive], who identified that it would be a great centre not only for an academy base but also for community cricket. And on that basis we’ve rescued it.
“We persuaded Persimmon to knock down the old pavilion and rebuild a smaller one as part of the arrangement – we’ve not handed over a penny, but we’ve facilitated the whole thing with Sport England, and passed it over to Warwickshire. Sport England also provided a grant to help reinstate the playing surface. It’s a genuine rebirth.”
Franklin hopes that three nets will be up and running by the first week of April – a daunting task, given the logs and branches that currently cover the run-up area.
The first game scheduled for the ground is May 22, coinciding neatly with the first home fixture for the Birmingham Bears in 2015 in their defence of the NatWest T20 Blast, against local rivals Worcestershire Rapids at Edgbaston. Dobson explains there are plans for much more to follow.
“The vision is for this to become the community hub of Edgbaston stadium,” he added. “We could have second XI games – hopefully as early as next year – as well academy fixtures, our Emerging Players Programme, county age group cricket, women and girls, quick cricket festivals, all that type of stuff.
"It could also be a valuable resource for other Birmingham leagues, as an alternative for clubs who currently play on local authority pitches.”
Warwickshire can even envisage this iconic Birmingham ground staging first-class cricket again, in which case memories would inevitably be revived of the most famous performance at Portland Road, when Jack Bannister took 10 wickets in an innings against the Combined Services XI in 1959.
“We hope that Edgbaston will be staging a lot of international cricket in the next few years, with the Champions Trophy in 2017 and the World Cup in 2019,” added Dobson. “When we hosted Champions Trophy matches in 2013, it meant our team were on the road for the best part of six weeks with the county ground unavailable. Now we could have an alternative.”
That should provide an exciting additional incentive for the volunteers who get behind NatWest CricketForce in Birmingham this weekend.