Bready win Spirit of Cricket Award
One of the most popular winners at Friday evening’s Cricket Ireland awards ceremony were Bready CC, who claimed the ‘Spirit of Cricket’ category.
The Magheramason club has received many plaudits for their community work during ‘lockdown’ as they provided Sunday lunches for the elderly and vulnerable in and around the village. The programme is actually still continuing right to the present day and committee member Trevor Hamilton explained this weekend how it had all come about.
“At our committee meeting the week before the first lockdown there was a suggestion that we reach out to the vulnerable in the local community. We distributed leaflets locally and asked for names of people we could help and we received around 60 replies that first week.”
“It kinda snowballed from there to be honest as one lockdown led into another. As our numbers increased we received help from local businesses such as John Allen in the NISA store, George Fleming (Fleming Agri) and FAST (Colin Spence).”
“We had intended to run until Christmas but were able to avail of help from Community Foundations and the Windfarm Scheme as numbers of lunches provided went into the hundreds.”
“We’re still going at the moment and are now hoping to continue on into April and this award is for all those donors as well as volunteers not just from Bready CC but also Foyle Wanderers, the local Orange Lodge and the community generally.”
Hamilton was also encouraging about new facilities at the international ground, with the installation of a 3-Bay All Weather Practice Area:
“Bready CC is extremely proud of the facility we have here. We’re delighted to be hosting International and Interprovincial cricket at all levels, but first and foremost we’re a community club.”
“We’re opening the new net lanes shortly that we’ve funded ourselves where kids can practice and play safely even on days when there are big games on.”
“We’re absolutely delighted to be the North West training ‘hub’, but it’s just as important that we’re also catering for the next Boyd Rankin, Craig Young or Davy Scanlon.”
“We’re delighted to be receiving this award as it is an acknowledgement of the efforts of the people in and around the club who did what they could to get through these very testing times together.”
