Saving Wavertree: Club urges cricket lovers to get involved in community lottery as fundraiser gathers pace

Phill O’Brien, chairman of Wavertree Cricket Club

Wavertree’s efforts to save their ground and secure the club’s future are picking up speed.

The club needs to raise £200,000 by the end of next year in order to buy the premises at Sandown Lane.

Chairman Phill O’Brien says the early response to a fundraising drive has been positive, with the cricket community rallying round.

Now he wants to encourage more people to get involved by taking part in Wavertree’s community lottery.

He said: “It’s £10 a month to join. There’s a £250 prize pot and at the moment around 145 people have joined us.

“My target is to grow the lottery to 300 members – and we’re half-way there, six weeks into it.”

The lottery is particularly important to Wavertree as it provides a regular income stream – something lenders will want to see if the club needs to borrow money to help it reach the £200k target.

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O’Brien has been heartened by the support he’s seen so far, including from Paul Morris, the Lancashire Cricket Foundation’s cricket development officer for Liverpool and Knowsley.

He said: “If you’d have offered me where we’re at right now, when we started, I’d have snapped your hand off.

“I’m really pleased that we’ve had quite a lot of donations and quite a lot of unsolicited donations from people at other clubs, which is really nice.

“I’ve gone from a position of feeling excited but burdened and not thinking we’d do it, to being excited and thinking, yeah, we’ve got a really good chance of doing it – as long as people continue to help.

“We can’t rest on our laurels.”

To join the community lottery, or to find out how else you can help Wavertree CC take control of its future, go to www.wccfundraise.co.uk.

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