Cheltenham Festival cancelled as Gloucestershire cut costs


Gloucestershire have cancelled this summer’s Cheltenham Festival because of the Covid-19 pandemic, meaning that this would be the first year in peacetime since 1871 that they have got not played a game at the College Ground.

All professional cricket in England and Wales is currently suspended until July 1 at the earliest, but it sort of feels an increasing number of unlikely that counties will return to play before August.

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The festival was once scheduled to start on June 29 and comprise two County Championship games and two T20 Blast fixtures, but provided the transitory staging costs and logistical challenges involved, Gloucestershire have made up our minds that any home games that are imaginable will be placed at Bristol instead.

“As we approach July, the club’s preparations for the Cheltenham Cricket Festival would wish to ramp up as a way to deliver this annual showpiece event at the College Grounds,” chief executive Will Brown and chairman John Hollingdale said in a joint observation.

“As the spotlight of the cricketing summer for lots of and with cricket being played [by Gloucestershire] in Cheltenham since 1872, it is naturally a enormous disappointment to us all that we’ve got had to take this decision.

“As the festival requires detailed planning and logistics and with such a lot uncertainty around a return to playing professional sport, we’ve had to make the call to minimize the club’s financial liabilities in erecting this transitory facility. We do sincerely hope that we can have cricket to play in Bristol this season.”

Gloucestershire had in the past announced that according to internal financial projections, even in the event of no county cricket at all being played this summer, the club “must be capable to break even this year and be able to face the future in a strong financial position when this crisis has passed”.

Cheltenham first hosted a Gloucestershire fixture in 1872, with lots of the earliest games played there dominated by W.G. Grace – his highlights there included an unbeaten 318 against Yorkshire in 1876 and a match haul of 17-89 against Nottinghamshire the following summer. The ground is most often believe to be some of the prettiest in English cricket, with the college’s buildings and chapel framing the backdrop.


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