By Frank Leavers
Calvia.—At a meeting yesterday at Calvia Council Town Hall representatives of the Mallorca Cricket Club, Viva Hotels, local councillors and planning/sporting officials thrashed out a deal that should protect the cricket clubs medium and long-term future.
Although the proposed works on the current cricket club ground are in Phase two of the massive hotel and urban development on the outskirts of Magalluf will not start (at the earliest) until the spring of 2015, all parties agreed that Mallorca Cricket Club should vacate the site by the end of this year.
This decision will end speculation as to just how long the club can stay on this site, which is causing problems for the club with potential touring teams. Viva Hotels candidly admitted that they were unable to offer the club any site within the complex as it is designated, and the club thanked them for the past ‘rent free’ years at the ground.
In terms of the much lauded ‘piggy-backing’ scheme that would allow MCC to use other sporting facilities within the municipality of Calvia to ‘host’ the cricket club; it was agreed that as the cricket club plays the game mostly at weekends when these facilities were at maximum use, this was seen as an attractive but impractical solution to the problem.