Tong Park & Esholt Cricket Club

Tong Park Esholt Cricket Club

Tong Park Cricket Club and Esholt Cricket Club amalgamated to become one organisation on the 1st January 2009. The motive for the move was to bring together two well established and successful clubs in order to provide a bigger, stronger club to move forward with the best of both establishments into the modern era.

The plan was for Esholt to resign from the Bradford League and the two senior sides i.e. the 1st and 2nd elevens would take over the Tong Park fixtures in the Airedale and Wharfedale Senior Cricket League and play their fixtures at Esholt. The 3rd eleven would remain in the Dales Council Cricket League and play their fixtures at Tong Park.

It was decided that the successful junior section at Tong Park would amalgamate with the less established junior section at Esholt giving the new club a strong means of succession and fixtures would be played at Esholt. It was hoped that the additional player numbers would provide a better playing strength in both junior and senior sides.

The club is very fortunate and proud to have two of the most picturesque and well maintained grounds in the area. The facilities at both grounds receive praise from all who use them.

Looks like the website for TPECC is a butchered & out of date version of the Esholt website.

Given that I had already done my homework on this ground, I was a little pissed cheesed off to find my way up to this ground blocked by a gate. (There's a bit of a theme starting here)

Having already spent quite a bit of time trying to locate the Northcliffe ground, I had to quickly abandon any other plan to try and find an alternative way in.

Having left Stanley in the undergrowth at Northcliffe, I had to press on.........

Parcels to the people & all that.

When I saw this sign at the bottom of the road, Bingo

There is another website, which is starting to get a bit confusing, or is this also out of date? (Update- Very good website with bags of info)

Tong Park Esholt Cricket Club are a family friendly, community cricket club based in the village of Esholt situated between Shipley and Guiseley in the metropolitan district of Bradford. The village of Esholt is perhaps most well known as the setting for the popular Yorkshire Television drama series Emmerdale. It was used for outside location shots, featuring The Woolpack pub from 1976 to 1996 before relocating to a purpose built set based on the village itself. Our home ground is located just around the corner from the village itself at Esholt Sports & Leisure. 2009 saw the merger of 2 local clubs, Tong Park Cricket Club and Esholt Cricket Club, to form one. This decision was made to secure the futures of both clubs and resulted in a shift in focus from paying players to encouraging and developing local talent and youngsters who want to feel part of an open and friendly club.

We now run 3 senior sides playing on a Saturday. Our First and Second XI play in the Airedale & Wharfedale Senior Cricket League playing from our main ground on Esholt Lane. Our 3rd XI play their home games at the picturesque Tong Park ground next to Tong Park Dam in the Dales Council Cricket League. Boxing Day 2015 saw the club devastated by unprecedented flooding (details here) causing widespread damage to not only the field but also the pavilion including stewards living accommodation, changing rooms, cricket equipment, walls and fencing and ground maintenance equipment. The club incurred costs in the region of £50,000 and was on the brink of extinction. We sought help from the ECB and Sport England and set about rebuilding our proud community club. We have worked hard to improve our facilities on the field and continue  make improvements off it with a goal to make us a bigger and better club than prior to the flooding. We re-launched our junior section in 2018 with investment from the club in new ECB Coaching Courses for our volunteers, new equipment and offered free introductory sessions for children new to the game.

The club continues to welcome anyone who wishes to be involved from children in our junior section, senior cricketers at all levels of ability and volunteers who would like to be involved in the running of the club and it's events. The club has recently achieved the highly regarded ECB Clubmark accreditation and aims to provide opportunities, through cricket, for all ages and abilities. This is proving increasingly popular with the local community and we have recently established a link with Hoyle Court Primary School in Baildon to provide cricket coaching for it's pupils.