\n Bolton Villas 1924 Cricket Club has been unable to play home fixtures at All Alone Road due to the row with ground trustees Willowfield CIO.\n<\/p>\n
\n The club has applied for an injunction to allow them to play at the ground.\n<\/p>\n
\n At a short hearing at Bradford Combined Court Centre last Wednesday, Deputy District Judge Helen Greatorex said the dispute centres around a lease for the land.\n<\/p>\n
\n The cricket club says there was an agreement and they “should be able to use the land, at the very least for this season” but the trustees claim “that’s not right”, the court heard.\n<\/p>\n
\n The club\u2019s legal team argued that the situation posed an immediate threat to its future.\n<\/p>\n
\n John Gibson, representing Bolton Villas, said: “There\u2019s a serious issue of urgency with this.”\n<\/p>\n
\n He explained that The Aire-Wharfe League has withdrawn home fixtures and the club “now faces collapse”.\n<\/p>\n
\n Mr Gibson said: “If they\u2019re locked out the club, they could collapse.”\n<\/p>\n
\n Annette Thomson, defending Willowfield CIO, challenged the urgency of the claim.\n<\/p>\n
\n She said: “The allegation they are going to collapse is wrong.”\n<\/p>\n
\n Ms Thomson said the letter from The Aire-Wharfe League says it has withdrawn home fixtures and not that the club cannot play cricket at all.\n<\/p>\n
\n The court heard that Bolton Villas has been renting grounds elsewhere in order to play cricket.\n<\/p>\n
\n Mr Gibson said only the first team has managed to play fixtures elsewhere with the second team “completely unable to fulfil their fixtures”.\n<\/p>\n
\n There is also “no guarantee” the first team can play matches on other grounds and have been told “this can’t be a permanent arrangement” with just two weeks left of playing at the venue they are using now, according to Mr Gibson.\n<\/p>\n
\n He said: \u201cThe league don\u2019t approve of this situation too, it needs to be resolved quickly.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Ms Thomson said on February 13, a letter from law firm Schofield Sweeney was sent, outlining the trustees were withdrawing from lease proceedings.\n<\/p>\n
\n The locks on the clubhouse were changed but Ms Thomson told the court the club \u201cre-forced re-entry\u201d the day after.\n<\/p>\n
\n Locks were changed again by the trustees and the club then forced entry again, the court heard.\n<\/p>\n
\n Ms Thomson said they were \u201con the property trespassing\u201d.\n<\/p>\n
\n Police were informed, but she said they considered it a civil matter.\n<\/p>\n
\n The club claims it has a right to remain on the land and is seeking interim legal protection to continue using it for the ongoing cricket season.\n<\/p>\n
\n Mr Gibson said: \u201cThe defendants are locking the claimants out the club.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThey\u2019re having to get back in by what means, what they say is forced entry.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n He added: \u201cThey\u2019re not forcing entry as they have a right to be there.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThere are hundreds of people involved with this issue.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Deputy District Judge Greatorex adjourned the matter until May 20.\n<\/p>\n
\n The court will then examine whether Bolton Villas has legal standing to bring the case and decide if the claim should proceed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bolton Villas 1924 Cricket Club has been unable to play home fixtures at All Alone Road due to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":579617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-579616","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\/579616","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=579616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/579617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}