VILLAGE cricketers who fear too much travelling is driving young people out of their sport are hoping to help to reverse the decline by forming their own Wear Valley league.

Players living around Bishop Auckland have to travel as far as South Shields and Sunderland to play in matches because there is no local league.

Alan Pratt, a former cricketer for North Bitchburn, said that since the Mid-Durham League was disbanded ten years ago, the village team has had to travel up to 25 miles for some matches, which is having an effect on the popularity of the game.

Mr Pratt said: "A lot of the village teams are having to do excessive amounts of travelling to the Darlington District League games, which stretches into the Yorkshire Dales, or to play in the North East Durham League, which spreads as far as South Shields or Sunderland.

"It is time-consuming, expensive and does not help to attract people to the club. It is making it difficult for clubs round here to find players. Youngsters don't want to be in Sunderland at 7pm, they want to be in the pub. I think the community as a whole miss local villages getting together to play a match. There is no incentive to watch anymore."

Secretary of the Durham Cricket Board, Bob Jackson, said: "I can understand the travelling must be demoralising and make it harder to find young players, although North Bitchburn Club has flourished and has just finished runner-up in their league.

"Finding young players is more of a problem for the county's cricket clubs. Some leagues are considering starting earlier on a Saturday, so young players can go out on their Saturday night outing.

"When players reach the age of about 18 there is considerable drop-out simply because of the late finishing time."