Members at Mill Hill Village Cricket Club celebrated the completion of brand new state-of-the-art practice nets last week.

The popular club, situated in Burtonhole Lane, has not had fit-for-purpose fixed nets for more than 20 years.

Mill Hill Village raised more than £42,000 through members and friends of the club as well as from grants from the London Borough of Barnet, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) and the Grange Farm Trust, which supports community and sports projects across the capital and its surrounding areas.

Work on the nets, which began in autumn 2022 after the 1st XI and 2nd XI both secured promotions in the Saracens Hertfordshire Cricket League, took longer than expected after contractor delays and poor weather.

But the build was successfully completed last week and a well-attended first practice session was held on August 10.

“Everyone at the club is really pleased that the project has come to fruition," said Director of Cricket Phil Smith.

"It’s a first-class facility that we can put to excellent use. I think it will be transformational in terms of the practice facilities that both the adult section and the juniors section can make use of.

"There are a lot of players, both juniors and adults, looking forward to making use of it. It might even attract a few new players and certainly help retain those that we’ve got. There’s no need to look elsewhere for first-class facilities.

“It’s been a long road to get where we’ve got to. We put in several grant applications as well as carried out fundraising efforts across the club, then we had some contractor delays due to all the rain, a whole range of issues.

“A huge thank you to everyone that’s contributed. There have been some very generous donations from members and from friends of the club. The three main fundraisers were the ECB, who we got a £10,000 country grant from; the Grange Farm Trust, who had donated £8,000 - they help with community sports projects; and we also got £16,000 from the London Borough of Barnet from their concessionary fund for supporting local projects and local clubs.

"Those combined probably gave us about 70 per cent of the funding and the rest was made up by the club. So thank you to all those who contributed!

“Everyone’s looking forward to putting the new facility to good use as we move the club forward in the years to come.”

New members are always welcome at Mill Hill Village, which runs four Saturday adult teams, an adult friendly team on Sundays and mixed junior teams at U11, U13, U15 and U17 level.

For further information about getting involved as a player, coach, volunteer or sponsor, email Phil Smith on info@millhillvillagecricketclub.co.uk.