Climate change disrupting grassroots sports
Climate change is threatening to disrupt grassroots sports by forcing games to be postponed.
A new study’s found this could lead to fewer athletes and fans wanting to take part.
Researchers from the British Association of Sustainable Sport said extreme weather has prevented more than 130,000 cricket overs from going ahead in the past decade.
Whilst sports clubs and events themselves are producing emissions contributing to the increasingly severe weather.
Andoversford Cricket Club (CC) have seen a rise in the number of matches being cancelled.
They now receive support from Gloucestershire Cricket Foundation, who provide them with waterproofing equipment to keep games going ahead.
Richard Cerrone, their treasurer said: “Without the facilities we’ve got at Andoversford I think we would have had half of our games cancelled.”
The club is also seeing the financial impact of this, as they rely on match day fees to keep the club afloat.
Richard said: “People pay their match fees which obviously has an impact on us paying all our rental fees and for our equipment, which keep the club operating”.
He also fears the costs of weatherproof equipment could make the sport inaccessible to some people.
He said: “I think it would become a very elitist sport, if you can’t afford to have the facilities you wouldn’t be able to play, cricket is for everybody.”