I recently read a disturbing BBC report about the current state of a grassroots cricket club that is facing closure due to lack of players.

In the piece, it says that Glasshouses Cricket Club in Nidderdale had to withdraw earlier this year from the Theakston Nidderdale Cricket League - one of the biggest village cricket leagues in the country - because they could not get a team together for the season.

Club groundsman Ken Hainsworth, is quoted by the BBC, saying, "In olden days there was nothing else to do, but nowadays you have to beg them to play."

I feel this trend has been going on for a number of years now. I published an article by Tony Leach in TurfPro a little while ago about the same issues.

There was another similar article published in The Guardian that talked about the issues facing one of the oldest cricket clubs in the country, Hambleden CC, where the very first game of first-class cricket was played in 1772. It’s an historic club ground that I use to maintain in the 1980s. The article considers how the club, like several others, in Hampshire find it difficult to field a team.

There is no current central database or system that tracks all recreational cricket clubs disbanding across England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. So, to date we cannot find any relevant data to confirm the total number of clubs that have folded in in recent years.

Other sports like rugby union and bowls are also suffering from a lack of players. An article last December in The Telegraph stated that around 170 clubs have withdrawn from the RFU club competition structure over the past 22 years.

As an ex-rugby union player and coach, I have also witnessed the demise of player numbers. Many of the teams I played against in the 1980s often fielded several senior teams - these days most clubs struggle to run two senior teams.

How times have changed. Long gone are the days when you spent the whole weekend playing sport. It seems more people have less time on their hands and undertake many other hobbies and pastimes. Also, modern family life has changed.

As for bowls clubs, their plight has been an ongoing one for years. Many clubs have lost players due to old age, with no new strategies in place to attract new players. Club memberships have been dwindling with plenty of clubs having fewer than 100 members. Also, annual memberships and greens fees are now so low that clubs are not raising enough funds to remain economically sustainable to pay for the maintenance of the green and pay the bills.

For a long time clubs have relied heavily on members to carry out the maintenance of the greens. Latterly however, these volunteers are inevitably getting older and unable to physically do the maintenance work, This can be exacerbated by new members not being prepared to take on the maintenance of the green. Bowls clubs are struggling to remain open.

I believe that we as a nation cannot afford to continue to lose these valuable community sports facilities. Once lost, they are hard to be replaced. Ideally, we need all the different sports’ governing bodies to come together and get more people engaged in participation.

We also must be prepared to pay higher club fees and membership charges to keep the clubs functioning. I spent years playing club rugby and I cannot put a price on the value of my enjoyment, friendships and memories made during my playing career at the club.

Our grassroots clubs are the bedrock of British sport and wellbeing. We should be more prepared to support and find ways to ensure they stay operational - and here for the next generation of players.