Cromer sports clubs handed a lifeline

landowner Benji Cabbell-Manners this week earmarked a plot for a 'community sports facility for Cromer' as the town's cricket and football clubs faced an eviction threat.

landowner Benji Cabbell-Manners this week earmarked a plot for a 'community sports facility for Cromer'

as the town's cricket and football clubs faced an eviction threat.

Cromer Town FC may be forced to move from its Cabbell Park home by January 2012. And Cromer Cricket Club is facing up to the end of its Norton Warnes Ground lease in September 2011. It means an uncertain future for the two clubs, which have a combined history of more than 200 years and a host of honours to their names.

Now, Mr Cabbell-Manners, pictured, who chairs the Cabbell Park trustees and whose great-grandmother drew up the agreement for the land to be used in 1922, is suggesting a 'one-hit' solution to the problem.

He said he was prepared to negotiate an agreement for the use of a piece of his land at Roughton Road as a 'community sporting facility to include football, youth football, hockey, cricket and even rugger'. Any move would leave Cabbell Park to be used by Cromer Hospital for car parking and by Cromer High School for any future expansion, he said. He added that it would be much more in line with Evelyn Bond-Cabbell's wishes in 1922, when she gave it 'for the people of Cromer to enjoy'.

The football club said it was aware of the possibility, while it is understood that the cricket club has also had tentative talks about the out-of-town relocation.