Illingworth St Mary’s handed funding boost by Sport England

Illingworth St Mary’s Cricket Club has been awarded £4,575 of National Lottery funding from Sport England’s Community Emergency Fund towards its running costs whilst shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The award will allow the club, who are in the Premier Division First in the Halifax Cricket League, to cover its insurance, maintenance and other running costs for the coming months whilst it is in shutdown and suffering a drastic fall in its income.

The President of the Illingworth Club, Andrew Smith said: “As a grassroots sports club suffering from a substantial fall in income as a result of closure to beat the virus the club is very grateful for the grant from Sport

England which will make a huge difference in our ability both to survive and be in a strong position to continue to provide high quality sports facilities when the pandemic has passed.”

Tim Hollingsworth, Sport England’s Chief Executive, said: “As the body responsible for the growth of sport and physical activity participation, we want the vital grassroots organisations that make sport and physical activity happen in this country to not just to come through this crisis but to be in a position to thrive again in the future.

“The £20m Community Emergency fund, which has been made possible by National Lottery players, is part of a multi-million pound package of support we are providing to ease the pressure on a huge number of the organisations who are central to the nation’s health and wellbeing.

“We are proud to be able to provide vital funding to Illingworth St. Mary’s Cricket Club to help it through these extremely challenging times.”

The fund has so far awarded grants worth over £21m to 5,787 different sports organisations.