MORE than 1,000 people are backing an Internet campaign to prevent a sports team being evicted from their ground after 175 years.

Civic leaders are meeting tonight to decide the fate of Lymington cricket Club, which has been based in the town centre since 1836.

As reported in the Daily Echo, councillors want the club to leave Lymington Sports Ground and move to the Woodside area of the parish.

They claim that cricket balls are causing a hazard by landing outside the ground, endangering the safety of players at a neighbouring tennis club and people walking through the graveyard at St Thomas’s Church.

Cricket club members have repeatedly disputed the safety fears, saying that no one has ever been injured by a ball from the sports ground.

Now about 1,200 people have signed up to an online campaign called Save Lymington, which aims to persuade the town council to scrap the Woodside scheme.

Cricket club chairman Peter Tapper praised the “fantastic”

level of support shown by fans.

He said: “We’re hoping common sense will prevail and the authority will defer a decision, which would give everyone a chance to get round the table.”

Mr Tapper warned that moving the club would set a dangerous precedent.

“If Lymington Cricket Club is evicted, hundreds of other ground-sharing sports clubs across the country will also be at risk,” he said.

However, most of the councillors are expected to back the Woodside plan.

At a recent meeting of the amenities committee, Councillor Penny Jackman said: “The plain and frightening reality is that cricket balls have been landing at great speed a matter of inches from unsuspecting people.”

It is not clear what will happen to the cricket pitch if the club loses its battle to stay.

But councillors have vowed that the land will never be built on and have already rejected an offer for a supermarket on the site.