CRICKET clubs in the Aire Valley are counting the cost of Storm Eva, and none in the Keighley area have been as badly affected as Airedale.

Water at the Riddlesden-based Bradford Road club reached as high as the top of the steps leading to the clubhouse, meaning that the ground was seven to eight feet under.

However, despite damage to the scorebox and equipment container, and effluent getting onto the square and outfield, club chairman Tim Crossley admitted: "We have been very, very lucky.

"The water level reached three foot higher than in 2000, and this time you could have sailed a boat and moored it.

"But the water did not get into the clubhouse, although it will be interesting to see what effect it has had on the side of the verandah."

He added: "We are very low lying and the river, which is two fields away, came up on Boxing Day.

"We built the scorebox ourselves and we will have to rebuild it ourselves but we have been lucky in a sense in that the main costs will be in time and effort, rather than money.

"The water also got into our container where we keep a lot of our equipment but the smaller mowers had been moved."

Crossley must be thankful that the club had the foresight to raise their new clubhouse.

He said: "We have a culvert which runs under the ground and we made a decision when we rebuilt the clubhouse in the 1990s to put it on a concrete raft to make it higher than the old one.

"In 2000, the water reached the bottom of the steps and there was a picture in the Keighley News of Phil Loftus and Paul Feather wearing wellies and holding cricket bats.

"Warren Coppack, Paul Feather and myself went down on Boxing Day afternoon, and the water has gone down relatively quickly since.

"It has gone down in stages and left three or four tide marks but the smell is horrible.

"What is left is a mustardy colour and we have found dead rodents, and there is definitely agricultural and industrial smells, which haven't been helped because it has taken away our pile of rotting grass cuttings, but that is our own fault!

"But the smell apart, what struck me was the noise on both Boxing Day and the Sunday.

"Normally you cannot hear the river but there was this constant roar, and it would not surprise me if it has taken away a chunk of the banking near East Riddlesden Hall."

Fellow Mewies Solicitors Craven League clubs Riddlesden and Bingley Congs have also been affected, with water getting into their scoreboxes and equipment garages.

The most striking thing about the damage at Congs' Beckfoot Lane ground was that the water, which reached the top of the banking in front of the clubhouse, has ripped out all of the fencing around the ground.

"To do that, the force of the water must have been amazing because they are concrete posts that have been concreted in," said Chris Dibb.

"The ground is a bit of a mess as debris from the allotments has piled up against the fencing, and the video footage that has been taken is incredible.

"The ground stinks, there is sand and silt on it and the mowers don't work but the big roller is still working and when you see the damage that has been done to some people's houses, it puts things into perspective."

Riddlesden's Danny Spencer said: "The water was about five feet deep at its worst and has got into the scorebox and garage, and I reckon it will take at least three months to sort out."

Yorkshire has its fingers crossed that Storm Frank, due to blow in from this evening, will not cause further flood damage.

Yellow weather warnings are in place for the Broad Acres but Cumbria (again), and south and central Scotland, were forecast to be most at risk.