Kirkby Portland Cricket Club
Address: Nuncargate Road, Kirkby in Ashfield, NG17
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Kirkby Portland Cricket Club and the ground that they now own at Nuncargate both enjoy a wonderful heritage. The Club was formed in 1878 and first played on a farmer’s field near Portland Colliery.
They were Notts Senior League Champions four times and Notts Senior League Cup winners once in the early part of the last century.
The Club has also had a considerable amount of success in recent years in both adult and junior cricket. The Club purchased their ground at Nuncargate in 1990 from Scottish & Newcastle Brewery after taking out a lease on it more than ten years earlier. This was the pitch that the legendary Harold Larwood first played cricket. The Club’s new brick pavilion, which was opened in 2002 by his daughter Enid Todd, is named in honour of this great Notts and England fast bowler who tamed the Australians.
Many of the players from the Notts Golden Years of Cricket came from Kirkby-in-Ashfield. The Club aims to ensure that this heritage is never forgotten and that cricket in this region has a bright future.
Kirkby Portland are an England & Wales Cricket Board Focus Club within Nottinghamshire and they have also achieved ECB Clubmark accreditation. They are therefore adjudged by both the England & Wales Cricket Board and Sport England to be a safe, effective and child-friendly organisation.
This pedigree has borne fruit in recent years with Sport England granting the bulk of the funds required for the new pavilion and the England & Wales Cricket Board contributed similarly for the Club’s new fully enclosed cricket nets. This funding from the ECB was part of their Community Club Development Programme. Kirkby Portland were given the accolade of being one of only three clubs in Nottinghamshire and two hundred clubs throughout the United Kingdom who were deemed eligible to receive money from this fund.
Kirkby Portland field three adult sides in the Gunn & Moore South Notts Cricket League on Saturdays, and three on Sundays in the Mansfield & District Cricket League. In addition the Club runs two Kwik Cricket teams for the younger members plus hardball teams in the Mansfield & District Youth Cricket League at Under 11, Under 12, Under 13, Under 14, Under 15 & Under 17. They are also endeavouring to reform a girls team, who shall be playing friendlies this summer in the hope of attracting enough players to form a team in coming years.