Harriet Barber, winner of this year’s Yorkshire Cricket Board Game Changer Award, is a prime example of the expansion of a volunteer’s role. She’s been at Frecheville Community Cricket Club for nearly eight years now; beginning as a player with the U15s. With her move to the Sheffield suburbs, Harriet has juggled playing with scoring […]
Interviews
Soyeb Kayat: How cricket is inspiring Kirklees communities
The start of my interview with the Yorkshire Cricket Board’s Soyeb Kayat (below) begins with a question – just not by me. “So…is this going to be like This is Your Life then?” I guess that makes me Michael Aspel if you’re of a certain vintage to recall the TV series from 1955-2003. Do you […]
Taj Butt & Great Horton Church: Inspiring junior cricketers
This is the story of Great Horton Church; a thriving, inner-city cricket club in Bradford whose community outreach stretches far beyond the game. I’m anticipating traffic congestion to get to Allerton Road in BD8 for the usual 6.15pm start. As it turns out, the drive over the top, past Bradford Royal Infirmary Hospital, a trip […]
Alex Brown: Cricket coaching and starting a company in your teens
I caught up with a Level 2 cricket coach, Alex Brown, who combines playing for Wrenthorpe in the Bradford Premier League with improving young cricketers. Here’s our Q&A… Hey Alex, what’s your cricket background? I’ve played cricket since I was around five years old so over 13 years (I’m 19 in June 2023). This interest […]
Paul Cummins: Taking the helm at the Yorkshire Cricket Board
Paul Cummins, the Yorkshire Cricket Board’s Director of Recreational Cricket, is talking to me from Headingley about what lies ahead. Three months into the job, the honeymoon period (if there is one in that role) has seen him zip around the region, meeting some of the staff and no doubt getting a feel for the […]
When’s the best time for junior cricket? (Not Sundays any more)
PORING over old copies of the Telegraph & Argus (Bradford’s daily paper) and the York Evening Press a few years ago made me realise how defined the football and cricket seasons used to be in the 20th Century. The football season finished in early April and the cricket season started a couple of weeks later, […]
Woodlands’ Tom Clee talks teeing off and titles
Bill Marshall talks to Tom Clee, of Woodlands Cricket Club in the Bradford Premier League, about switching clubs, the Woodlands way and how his game has progressed this season. Tom Clee is used to making big decisions. For example, when the Woodlands all-rounder was an under-12 he chose to move from Northowram Fields (literally over […]
Andrew Watson: 45 years in Yorkshire Cricket
I first met Andrew Watson, the former Managing Director of the Yorkshire Cricket Board, at Headingley to talk about Cricket Yorkshire. He fizzed with ideas, had a myriad of names at his fingertips then sealed a lifetime friendship by buying me fish and chips at Stumps Restaurant. We catch up by phone a few months […]
Walking cricket proves popular in Leeds as its growth continues
Liz Billings celebrates the popularity of walking cricket in Yorkshire and explains how it has taken off in Leeds. I finally got to scratch that itch when I found ‘walking cricket’. I’ve always loved both playing and watching sport. My love of cricket was born playing in the ginnels – alleyways, to some – with […]
James Smith: My playing career at Pudsey St Lawrence
Bill Marshall talks to James Smith, of Pudsey St Lawrence in the Bradford Premier League, about his playing career in James’ final season. It is said that when Derbyshire needed another fast or fast-medium bowler in the 20th Century, they just hollered down a mine shaft. Not all of these were miners, however, but the […]