Project: "A Year In The Life Of A Cricket Club". A photographic profile of Hailsham Cricket Club through 2025.

Hailsham Cricket Club, in East Sussex, UK, is a family-friendly club with a strong community and social ethos, and many teams, playing in different tournaments throughout the season. The club was first formally documented in 1871 but may have existed in some form even before then.

The club believes in 'cricket for all'. Members benefit from two beautifully kept pitches on different locations in the town (one of the pavilions is more than 100 years old but has been exquisitely renovated with 21st Century facilities), and there are extensive training facilities (including access to indoor winter training).

There are teams for men, women, and all age groups, and (apart from the coaching staff) there are many important non-playing roles. Some games are filmed and livestreamed with commentary, there is an active social media presence, there are grounds staff, and members who staff the bar, maintain the buildings and equipment, sit on committees, run the club's sponsorship, business and financial affairs, and every other role that you can imagine in a large community based organisation. All of that is reflected in the photography; we're also grateful to GB Willow, who hand-make cricket bats to very high standards, and who facilitated a photography session in their workshops, about 20 miles from us and in our own county of East Sussex. It all helps to tell the story of our club - where their bats are a common sight.

The photography here is all to 'editorial standards', meaning that there is almost no AI use. As of 08/06/25 only three images have any editing at all involving AI software (specifically Photoshop Generative AI) - in each case, the removal of very small intrusive items which were time-consuming to remove without it. According to the SS rules the AI amends would occupy one tiny fragment of a single image square and, therefore, meet the required standard.

This Flickr account is primarily a practical mechanism for displaying the photography to Hailsham Cricket Club members and friends (and the teams they play). Since the club includes young members, comments are disabled, names have sometimes been removed from team shirts, and there are no descriptions of the shots; the photography can speak for itself. We aren't seeking faves, we're not in the 'mutual faves' business and won't employ any other 'fave building' strategies(!), but thank you if you've faved an image anyway!

Sorry to have say this, but ....

Because Flickr will not protect images from scraping and outright theft, only low-res images with a signature are included here (some of these images are commercially marketed elsewhere and are subject to license agreements). We can't prevent theft - pretty much no one can, online - but we'll make it clunky for unauthorised users to steal these images, and we'll make sure that unethical users will find easier options elsewhere.

All images are strictly copyright protected © 2025 David Michael Bellis. Unauthorised downloading and use is strictly forbidden. Periodically, we do chase down offenders, and so do those who have the marketing rights to some of the images (they are fiercer and more legally resourced than we are).

If you are a club member or are featured in any of these images, and would like a 'full-fat' copy of the image, please contact the club.

PS: we didn't really join in 2013, we joined in mid 2025 - we simply took over a member's dormant account!