2002 year of the Queens golden jubilee, we raise a glass to toast the foresight of our cricketing forefathers.

The British Columbia Cricket Association says the future of cricket in Vancouver resides with the immigrant populations and grounds in Surrey. We disagree. The Vancouver League says the future of cricket in this jurisdiction lies in artificial wickets. We disagree. We reprint an exact quote from a letter of Don Bradman to the President of the BCCA, Mr. Hann, in 1948.




"I have said on many occasions, and I am glad to repeat that, in my opinion, the Brockton Point ground is the prettiest upon which it has been my pleasure to play. It is a really magnificent setting, and I wish that some of our more important games such as test matches, could be played under these ideal circumstances." The Crown Jewel of the Vancouver Parks system is Stanley Park. Nestled in a corner of that Park is a crown jewel of a worldwide system of private and public parks devoted to cricket, Brockton Point.


Brockton Point is a testimonial to a group of visionary and energetic young men who built Brockton Point between 1889 and 1892 because they were addicted to cricket. Moreover they laid the foundation of a Vancouver Parks system devoted to cricket that followed. Connaught Park, Douglas Park, Memorial Park built by cricketers in 1926, Balaclava Park built as a training facility for athletes competing in the British Empire Games in 1956, Trafalgar Park. Nowhere in Canada could you find such a concentration of grounds devoted to our game. Sadly all that foundation is now being eroded by a number of factors.

The headlines in the Courier said it best on July 16, 2000. "Balaclava Park Pitch now all but unplayable. SANDING OPERATION NOT CRICKET."

Prior to the loss of Balaclava Park to cricket in 2000, we lost Douglas Park West to cricket in the 1990Æs. Memorial Park fell by the wayside due to our neglect in the 1980Æs and was recycled back into the cricket loop in 2000 and an artificial wicket installed on a substandard square. Connaught Park is run over with weeds, a victim some say to the Parks Board policy of banning the use of weed killers in local parks but more likely the victim of years of benign neglect. Our forefathers felled mighty Oaks and Cedars, cleared brush and navigated through swamps to clear an area to create a grass wicket for cricket but we raise the white flag of surrender when confronted by the mighty dandelion. No matter lay down an artificial wicket.

The most recent blight on the local cricket green comes from a number of directions. A series of Presidents and executive members on the local cricket scene who are social cricketers, never having played cricket at or with cricketers at a decent level of play; looking to placate the Parks Board; and looking for a quick fix, hence the stampede to artificial wickets. Pressures on the Parks Board from multiple users and the propensity of the local Parks Board to use sand as a panacea to cure all manner of ills from budget shortfalls, irrigation, weed control, to shoddy greens maintenance practice and policies. Frisbee, the yuppie blight and most benign of pastimes, where players descend like locusts on park greens expelling other user groups before it, complaining all the while that cricket squares are cut too short and the ground manicured too hard for their spikes to grip. Last but not least the X, Y, and Z generation of local and for the most part immigrant cricketers who are so busy making ends meet, they only have time to show up at the ground and play.

We cricketers have special needs. No need to be embarrassed about it. But we must be prepared to market ourselves, fight and sacrifice to maintain the goodwill and legacy of green space our forefathers carved out of the Vancouver Parks system for us. Our green revolution must be to reclaim our legacy of Parks, return to turf wickets and well maintained squares. Otherwise we shall never full fill the promise that The Don saw for us when he wrote ôI wish that some of our more important games, such as Test matches, could be played under these ideal circumstances.ö

Cvt