CRICKET GROUNDS.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 March 1919, Page 4

CRICKET GROUNDS.

Those gentlemen who are interesting themselves in endeavoring to provide a suitable permanent cricket playing ground in New Plymouth deserve success. Cricket has never "took on" here as in other places, and the principal reason is the lack of playing facilities in a central locality. Tlie sports ground in tlie Park has been used for the purpose at odd times, but the conditions there are unsatisfactory, the area being restricted, the wicket subject to extreme wet and dryness, and the light bad. The promoters' aim is to secure a few acres at tlie racecourse, where the conditions are ideal, and where any number of matches could be played. To put down wickets and keep the outfields in order will cost, it is estimated, about

£3OO, and to maintain them afterwards about £l5O to £l7O a year. Whilst it is a good axiom that, athletes and sportsmen should pay for their own sport, it is manifestly impossible for this to be done in this instance, as the game, from one cause and another, has been allowed to almost die in the town, and to revive it will take time. Hence assistance is being asked of the Borough Council and citizens. It should be readily giveiij, for no game is more deserving of support nor makes lor the development of the beat attributes in our youth. Besides, a town of the size of New Plymouth 1 is not complete without a good cricket ground, where matches witli visiting clubs can be played, and where the young idea can be taught the game properly. The war has taught us the value of games more perhaps than anything else possibly could, and we simply cannot as a town neglect the provision of facilities for this finest of all British summer games.