The previous week, on the night of Friday 2nd to Saturday 3rd of May, the ground and pavilion had been put out of action during a bombing raid. In the early hours of that Saturday morning an enemy land mine had created a crater between five and six feet deep in the middle of the cricket field, and also caused great damage to the pavilion. Subsequently the field was requisitioned for allotments, and no further cricket was played at Rake Lane for the next eleven years, until the new pavilion and refurbished ground was finally opened on the Whit Bank Holiday Monday, 2nd June 1952, for the match against Wallasey. New Brighton played two more matches in 1941, at Oxton and at Huyton, but, with few of their pre-war players available and with no home ground, the cricketing side of the club then ceased to function until 1946. The [crown green] bowls section of the club was able to continue throughout the war.