Bank of England Affiliation
About Us 9 of 9

9. Bank of England Affiliation


Current Status

We are a completely open community club, but with a historic affiliation to (but not funded by) the Bank of England dating back to our foundation in 1908. A significant number of our members have ties to the Bank in one way or another, be it as staff, pensioners or through family links.

Many of our members are currently serving Bank staff, which helps to promote working relationships across the Bank. It works wonderfully well until you run out one of your colleagues looking for a quick single...!

We continue to actively recruit new players from within the Bank and hope that this continues for many years to come. We are supported in this endeavour by the Bank's social network, Be.

History

The Bank of England Sports Club in Roehampton, South West London, was formed in 1908. This fantastic facility was for many years exclusively for Bank staff, but over time it's membership gradually grew to include pensioners, ex staff, family members and a small number of unaffiliated "guest" members.

In the early 1990s the site itself was re-named the Bank of England Sports Centre and became a separate commercial entity, as a private members club but open to all.

The historic Sports Club (the collection of individual members and sports teams) retained membership rights of the site, recognising that the vast majority were connected to the Bank. This helped to serve as a continuing benefit of Bank employment for staff and their families. whilst enabling the site to to be used for community sport.

In 2019 the Bank announced that the site was to be leased out to a new owner, ending the preferential membership enjoyed by the individual sports teams (such as cricket) and our members. This meant that the rules permitting a limited membership structure were no longer valid, so in 2020 we were able to make the decision to become a completely open club for the first time. Regardless, one of our key objectives remains as being the "cricket club of choice" for Bank staff in the London area.

In 2023 the Sports Club (the entity) took the sad decision to dissolve after 115 years, predominantly as under the new site leaseholder there was no general access or site "membership". This made it difficult to see a future role for the Sports Club. The Cricket Club would instead became affiliated to the Bank's new Sports & Social Club: "Be".


For further information, please contact our Chair Peter Andrews.