Oulton CC's All Stars in 2017.
Oulton Cricket Club sits in a suburban village on the outskirts of Leeds. The club currently has two open-age teams, which play in the All Rounder Cricket Bradford Premier League on a Saturday afternoon. In recent years, Oulton’s junior section has sadly dwindled. Oulton used to boast age group teams from U11 through to U17, but now only have an U13s, currently playing in the Wetherby League. Much of this is due to a lack of players - with larger, more successful clubs, with a proven track record regarding juniors, on the doorstep and not much interest in cricket in the local schools.
Oulton saw All Stars Cricket as a chance to revitalise their junior section. The club wanted to create a pipeline of potential players by sharing their enjoyment of the game with children as young as four and encourage those a little older to consider cricket as a sport they might like to play at a competitive level.
The communication around All Stars on a national and local level helped raise the profile of cricket as an activity for young children and Oulton were able to capitalise on that. It gave the club a starting point in terms of how to engage children as young as Reception age and provided a framework to build upon in terms of the sessions and tailoring them to suit the ages and abilities of the little Stars.
All Stars also provided an opportunity for some of Oulton’s players and committee members to explore and expand their coaching skills. For some, this was their first experience of working with children and, although challenging at times, proved enjoyable and inspiring.
Oulton’s Activators in 2017 were Jonny Henshaw and Holly Matthewman, who were ably supported by fellow club members Jake, Imogen, Ben, Matty, Andy and Robert. With 26 children, ranging in age from four to nine, with varying levels of ability, Oulton found the more leaders they could get involved, the more successful they were in keeping participants engaged and involved in the sessions. The kids were split into groups for the sessions, with those groups rotated around the activities; this ensured that all the children worked with all the leaders, who each had different strengths and characteristics to help encourage and develop the children.
Activator Jonny explained further: “The All Stars programme as a whole was really successful, with the children improving across all three disciplines from the start of the programme to the end. Breaking down individual skills and implementing them into a fun environment, the priority was on the children enjoying themselves without them necessarily realising how much they were improving week on week. The taster sessions that we ran helped portray this to the children and parents before the main programme started, helping us gain friends or family members who weren’t signed up beforehand (we went from 11 sign ups to 26 by the time the programme started!).
“The main things that worked well was the number of volunteers helping out; this was a massive help from an Activator’s point of view as we were then able to split the kids into three groups rather than two, allowing the children to have more turns at trying out their skills, rather than waiting and losing concentration. We would look at the parents to take on the volunteering roles, allowing us to bring in more people to the club that are willing to volunteer.”
Activator Holly commented: “Imogen and I worked as a pair and, each week, we worked with the groups to improve their bowling skills. As a keen cricketer/bowler myself, I wanted to show them my technique in order to assist them with creating and developing their own bowling style. Imogen worked as support, keeping the little Stars active while I spent time with each one of them to work on their bowling action.
“Every week we saw great improvement, I watched as they developed their individual styles of bowling, and by the last week I was extremely proud of their achievements.”
Oulton ended their All Stars programme with a BBQ for the children, their parents and siblings - which was run by and involved some of the club’s other players. The Club Chairman gave a little speech and the children were presented with their certificates and a group photograph that the Activators had taken of all the children and leaders! This all gave the families a sense of the welcoming atmosphere of the club and will hopefully encourage them to return for competitive junior cricket.
Oulton are now looking to the future; continuing their successes with All Stars Cricket with an eye on reigniting their junior section. It’s obvious the amount of hard work that went into delivering such a great programme of All Stars Cricket at Oulton, with so many little extra perks for the kids which helped make the sessions and entire experience much more enjoyable and rewarding. Well done to Oulton on a fantastic 2017 and we hope to be hearing all about an even better 2018 soon!