{"id":920103,"date":"2026-10-08T02:20:19","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T02:20:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/920103\/"},"modified":"2026-10-08T02:20:19","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T02:20:19","slug":"insurers-block-first-grade-cricket-at-old-beachs-cloak-oval","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/920103\/","title":{"rendered":"Insurers block first grade cricket at Old Beach\u2019s Cloak Oval"},"content":{"rendered":"

Old Beach Cricket Club has asked to drop back a grade to keep playing at its home ground, after Brighton Council said its insurers would not accept the risk of first grade cricket there.<\/p>\n

The club, formed in 1896, was promoted to the Southern Cricket Association\u2019s first grade competition after last season.<\/p>\n

Club president Tony Allanby said the club was told two or three weeks before the season was due to start that it could not play the top grade at Cloak Oval.<\/p>\n

With the season starting next weekend, he said the club was \u201ccurrently in limbo\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"\"Old Beach Cricket Club president Tony Allanby said the club was currently in limbo. Image \/ Supplied<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not happy to go back to second grade, but if we have to, we have to,\u201d Allanby told Pulse.<\/p>\n

Brighton Mayor Leigh Gray said the oval\u2019s closeness to a playground and houses meant balls hit out of the ground could cause injury or property damage.<\/p>\n

\"\"The season starts next weekend with the club still waiting on a resolution. Image \/ Supplied<\/p>\n

The council said it had worked with the club to install netting and limit the types of games played, with the latest netting near the playground costing about $30,000.<\/p>\n

It said stepping up a grade increased the risk, which its insurers had advised was \u201cnot acceptable\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cCouncil is a strong supporter of community sport, but we don\u2019t want to see anyone hurt,\u201d Gray said.<\/p>\n

The council said it could accommodate the club at another ground, though some rostering changes might be needed.<\/p>\n

\"\"Old Beach Cricket Club has asked to drop back a grade to stay at its home ground. Image \/ Supplied<\/p>\n

Allanby said playing home games elsewhere was not an option because the club relied on home-game revenue.<\/p>\n

He said losing its first grade home games would leave the club around $8,000 to $9,000 out of pocket, which \u201cwould just about put us out of business\u201d.<\/p>\n

According to Allanby, the club lost about $5,000 in revenue when the council stopped T20 games at the oval because of its size.<\/p>\n

He said the clubrooms were also a social outlet for older residents and the club was the last established cricket club in the Brighton municipality.<\/p>\n

\"\"The latest netting near the playground cost the council about $30,000. Image \/ Supplied<\/p>\n

\u201cWe get the impression that the council\u2019s certainly not supportive of the Old Beach Cricket Club and they don\u2019t really want us playing on Clark Oval, so we sort of, we fear this might be the beginning of trying to push us out,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He expected little to come from a meeting with the council on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Gray said the council would continue to work with the club to find a resolution.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust be a bit more supportive in the risk assessment,\u201d Allanby asked of council.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe that the risk assessment was a recommendation and we\u2019ve sort of been in conversation with the council for a while about it, but there hasn\u2019t been anything clear and the season\u2019s about to start then all of a sudden the decision\u2019s been made.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhich leaves us very little time to do anything other than potentially drop back a grade.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Old Beach Cricket Club has asked to drop back a grade to keep playing at its home ground,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":920104,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-920103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=920103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/920104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=920103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=920103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=920103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}