HISTORY AND THE CHALLENGE
Brighton Aldridge Academy is a relatively new school, which, has been built on the northern edge of Brighton. Sir Rodney Aldridge who assisted in the funding of the academy is an avid cricket fan and player of the sport and has close links with Lord Bassam of Brighton who also has a passion for cricket. Both men play for Stanmer CC with Sir Rodney being the club Chairman and Lord Bassam holding the post of honorary President of the club.
Stanmer CC was formed when two local teams, Preston Village Hadlow Down and Moulescomb Wanderers merged. The aim of Stanmer CC is to provide the community around the academy with an outlet for cricket. The club has strong links with the academy and has students playing for the local team. Winter training had always posed a problem for the club as players had to travel to various indoor locations in the area to carry out the training. The two men along with staff at the academy decided it would make sense to install a prime indoor cricket facility at the academy to negate the need for travel in the winter period and to further promote cricket in the Brighton area. Sportsafe were approached to see if this would be feasible in the existing sports hall at the academy.
Sportsafe were only too pleased to accept the invitation to meet Sir Rodney Aldridge and Lord Bassam to discuss their plans. The sports hall at the academy had not been initially designed to accommodate cricket bays as the existing equipment had been installed leaving very little space.
THE SOLUTION
Sportsafe sent their installation specialists to Brighton Aldridge Academy and came up with a detailed plan of what was required to overcome the space restrictions imposed by the existing equipment. Specialist bracketry and trackway was required to do this but Sportsafe were confident the installation could be fitted without compromising other sports played at the academy.
As is usual with this type of installation time was of a premium as the winter months were rapidly approaching and
the club was keen to have the facility in place for the winter training period. Sportsafe managers and installation staff met to see if it would be feasible to manufacture all the cricket equipment and install it in such a short period of time. Everyone decided that they could complete this installation in the time scale required. Manufacturing
was started immediately and a date was agreed between the company and the academy for early December, the installation would be carried out over a weekend to minimise disruption to the school curriculum.
As the deadline approached Sportsafe had to face many challenges, including imposing very tight lead times on their suppliers. All suppliers involved in the project excelled and all components were ready for the installation date.
Sportsafe sent two teams to Brighton to carry out the installation which, was begun on the Saturday morning with assistance from the installation manager to oversee the work. The engineers involved in the project had by Saturday afternoon managed to install the roof mounted metal work and brackets and had most of the track in place by the end of the day. On Sunday morning the remainder of the track was installed and as promised the net supplier delivered the netting in time to complete the installation by Sunday afternoon. Brighton Aldridge Academy now had a fully functioning four bay practice cricket facility ready for use on the Monday morning.
THE OUTCOME
Sir Rodney, Lord Bassam and the staff at the academy were delighted with the new facility provided by Sportsafe which, now allows Stanmer CC and the school to achieve their goal of having a local facility that provides a training regime which, benefits both the club and the local and wider community. Sportsafe were very pleased with the whole installation project from design, manufacture and installation.
Once again, it has been demonstrated that Sportsafe can overcome technical and time constraints to deliver facilities
that perform to the highest of industry standards.
Click here to read more – Netting Flyer – June 2012
