David Stoyles (left) scoops Services to Groundsmanship award for 2017.
The boxing day floods of 2015 devastated the Sowerby Bridge Cricket Club playing surface and ground equipment and effectively destroyed the club house and changing rooms. The playing area and artificial net facility were completely covered in inches of thick silt, sewage and debris. The club house and changing rooms were completely flooded by flood levels never seen before in Calderdale. All the fixtures, fittings, furniture, kitchen equipment, bar and stock were destroyed.
All seemed lost, but everyone had failed to reckon with the indomitable spirit of the club groundsman – David ‘Spud’ Stoyles. There has never been a more natural ‘doer’ than David. Upon seeing his pitch, David rolled up his sleeves, along with other club members and kind members of the Spencer Wilson Halifax Cricket League, and manually removed all the remaining mud covering the playing fields and the nets.
Within one week of the flood, the SBCC Committee (of which David is a member) had organised a meeting of club members (in a local pub!) to agree what was needed. They motivated and organised the club members in the pursuit of fundraising. Through a sponsored walk, an auction dinner and various other fund raisers, the club raised in the region of £70,000 to try and help rebuild the club – a stunning achievement for such a small, local club.
From this point onwards, David took responsibility for working directly with the ECB to try and find a way forward to recover the playing surface. As a qualified groundsman of 22 years, David was perfectly positioned to speak the technical language of the expert playing surface consultant appointed by the ECB.
David has worked tirelessly and in good humour to bring SBCC back to life – there was a clear and present threat that the club could fold unless they could recover the playing surface. David absolutely embodies the ‘never say die’ attitude of this small, family and community based club. His commitment was rewarded by a successful return to playing junior and senior cricket at the Walton Street ground for the 2017 season. The comparison between the mudflat devastation of 2015 and the rich, striped, green grass of 2017 could not be a starker contrast.