History

The Cricket Club was re-established in 1967 as Riverside C C and later as Dare Valley C C before changing to Aberdare C C and has gradually grown into one of the biggest cricket clubs in South Wales.

In 2008 the committee decided that a new five year improvement plan was required to move the club forward. We initially reviewed the needs and developments required to help us to achieve this progress.

Our target areas were:-

• Development of assets such as training facilities,
• Development of a meeting place close to the ground which would also act as a tea room
• Increasing participation, membership and more senior sides
• Development of School Club Links
• More community engagement and interaction, enabling use of our facilities by the local community and community groups
• Development of a partnership with RCT Borough Council.

Since that time our club has expanded and we now run 3 adult teams on a Saturday and 4 junior teams at various age groups vastly increasing our junior membership.

We began with a partnership with RCT Borough Council and were granted a 25 year lease on the land outside the boundary of pitch 1 of the Ynys Fields, Aberdare. We then sourced funding in 2010 from various funders that allowed us to purchase a portable club room and new training nets and much needed equipment, which has resulted in us making massive progress over the past 3 years.

In 2010 we started making our new portable clubroom available to other community groups.

Over this period there has been a big change across our organisation. With a rolling funding programme of help from the Tudor Trust from 2010  our community engagements have resulted in over 50 other community groups experiencing our facility and continuing use as and when required and available.

We were just a sports club when we started the project. We are now a community group as well as a sports club and our work has allowed us to get involved with a wider sector of the community.

This enables us to offer our building to many people who would not have had the benefit of our facilities if we had remained as a simple sports only club. This development has taken us in new directions and has reinforced the importance of our involvement in the community.

Due to the increase in demand for the use of our portable building from the Community, it was decided that a larger sustainable Community Hub at the Ynys Fields Aberdare was needed.

In 2013/14 we were approached by the Council who offered a further new long term lease of 25 years to now include the old changing room building adjacent to our facility, further confirmed that this was the right time to move forward.

We presented our proposed development plan to planning for consent then to Amgen and other funders outlining our vision for an even bigger Community Hub with Café.

We were able to secure our capital funding target with agreements from a number of funding streams including Amgen Environmental Body Limited, and the Welsh Church Act Fund.

The first Phase is now complete. The Ynys View Community Hub and Café is now fully established until the pandemic hit in 2020 when we were forced to close.

In 2021 we hope to be able to reopen the club room by mid summer.