\n Bungay Cricket Club feared the upcoming season would be halted after vandalism meant the club faced a repair bill of more than \u00a32,000.\n<\/p>\n
\n However, thanks to the generosity of locals, the square has been re-laid, ready to host the first home game of the season this weekend.\n<\/p>\n
\n Work to repair the ground took place after the community rallied together (Image: Bungay Cricket Club)\n<\/p>\n
\n Jim Howlett, club chair, said he was looking forward to the prospect.\n<\/p>\n
\n Mr Howlett said: “We were really upset that someone would want to hurt the club in this way, but we have rallied round and grown stronger from the experience.\n<\/p>\n
\n “The repairs cost in excess of \u00a32,000, but thanks to the generosity of Bungay Town Trust, Bungay Town Council, and individual donors who have provided funds, we have been able to carry out the repairs to the square, without a significant impact on our funds or on the cricket calendar.”\n<\/p>\n
\n Bungay Cricket Club in action (Image: Bungay Cricket Club)\n<\/p>\n
\n “Special mention should go to our grounds team of Ross Stannard and Dickie Davies, ably supported by Stuart Smith, who have worked tirelessly to get the square ready.”\n<\/p>\n
\n Bungay Cricket Club is set to play host to Mattishall Second XI in Division Five of the Norfolk Alliance.\n<\/p>\n
\n In February, club officials discovered vandals had used a substance, believed to be weedkiller, to damage the ground at the Maltings Meadow in Ditchingham.\n<\/p>\n
\n The Bungay & District Sports Association is home to the town’s cricket, football, and tennis club (Image: Bungay & District Sports Association)\n<\/p>\n
\n Police have since dropped their search for the suspects after a Norfolk Constabulary spokeswoman confirmed all lines of enquiry had been “exhausted”.\n<\/p>\n
\n After the incident, the club installed more surveillance equipment and is continuing to review existing footage to identify the vandals.\n<\/p>\n
\n Skipper Luke Newton added: “It’s great to be playing cricket again after all that’s happened at the club, and we can’t wait to be back at Maltings Meadow on Saturday.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bungay Cricket Club feared the upcoming season would be halted after vandalism meant the club faced a repair…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":435009,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-569141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=569141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=569141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=569141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=569141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}