Festival end rocks fans (From Echo)

Festival end rocks fans

12:30pm Thursday 29th September 2011 in Cricket

COUNTY cricket fans in south Essex have been stunned by the decision to end Southend Cricket Festival after 105 years.

The annual festival had been a popular feature of the town’s sporting calendar for more than a century.

But Essex County Cricket Club committee’s decision to axe the event has sparked anger from the festival’s supporters.

One Southend Cricket Festival fan, who did not wish to be named, said: “I'm obviously very disappointed with the decision as the festival appeared to be going from strength to strength at Garon Park.

“But we had heard rumours that trying to keep the festival at Southend would be like trying to climb Mount Everest in flip-flops.

“I think that once it has gone it will not be coming back. While the facilities will still be there, the problem will be logistics.

“Presumably the organising committee will be disbanded and even if they do bring the festival in two, three or four years, they would have to start again from scratch.

“There must be strong reasons that they want to go back to Chelmsford and it will therefore take even stronger reasons to get it back in Southend."

Another supporter of the festival added: “There were problems with Southchurch Park in terms of the condition of the pavilion and security, so the move to Garon Park was a good thing.

“There has been a lot of work done at Garon Park over the past five years and it appeared to be getting better and better.

“The decision to end more than a century of first class cricket in the town is really sad.”

The news of the festival’s demise has also sparked comments on the Echo’s website, www.echo-news.co.uk.

Cockle called the decision an “absolute disgrace”.

He added: “A few members have always been vociferously anti Garon Park, agreed it is not the best place to watch cricket; Southchurch Park was always better.

“However, it brought first class cricket to the doorstep of a large catchment area, enabled a lot of kids to ‘pop down the road’ to get their first taste of watching cricket at an affordable price, and it made a profit.”

Russ13 said it was a “sad loss” but argued Garon Park’s location meant it was not near a station and was a “pretty soulless” place.

“I’m not going to subscribe to the ‘conspiracy’ theories about why Southend’s been ‘axed’ but I think from a business perspective, festival cricket in Southend (for whatever reason) just isn’t bringing in the cash like it used to,” he said.

“I’d rather have a financially sound County Cricket Club than one that's struggling to fund festival cricket.”