The WCB team was delighted to welcome the winners of the 2023 Warwickshire Cricket Collective Awards to Edgbaston earlier this month, where they received their awards from WCCC Performance Director, Gavin Larsen.
Recognising the contribution of volunteers in recreational cricket is vitally important. The Cricket Collective is one of my favourite events of the year. We have the opportunity to invite a very special group of volunteers to Edgbaston, present them with awards, and hear their inspiring stories.
Ed McCabe
The 2023 Awards event and lunch was organised by Alex Roslyn, WCB Cricket Development Officer. “The Cricket Collective Awards is an ECB programme which recognises the commitment of volunteers,” explained Alex. “They are the invaluable people who form the backbone of the recreational game. Without the dedication of volunteers, many of our cricket clubs simply couldn’t function.”
The 2023 Warwickshire Cricket Collective Awards winners are;
Sutton Coldfield Cricket Club – Connecting Communities Award
Warwickshire Cricket Board and Birmingham Unicorns had the idea to put together the first LGBTQ cricket festival. The aim was to further grow LGBTQ participation in cricket and hope it encouraged the formation of further teams around the country. Sutton Coldfield CC offered to provide their grounds.
However, they also bought a lot more into the idea and became a massive driving force for the event on 11th June. From Chairman, Nick Baker, to the rest of committee, the commitment both to the event and to the message of inclusivity was incredible.
The hard work of all the committee to producing a day to be proud of, was unflinching and something the club can be hugely proud of and something we as a Cricket Board were proud of from one of our clubs.
Castle Bromwich Cricket Club – Inspired to Play Award
Castle Bromwich has been the home ground for our Warwickshire Access team for many years and continue to be an important part of disability cricket in the county.
They are now home to our Lords Taverners Solihull North Super 1’s hub so welcome participants for free cricket sessions. They strive to bring together the community and offer a way for children and young people with a disability a way of becoming more active and building social, as well as their cricketing, skills.
Lola Billing – Rising Star Award
Lola is a wonderful young lady. She has been helping around the club for around the last 2 seasons now. She is an inspiration and will lend a hand to anything. Last season Lola was one of only 2 girls playing cricket for us. She convinced us to try to get a girls’ team together for her to play in. She worked hard over the winter recruiting lots of her friends from school and inspired a lot of the female siblings of the boys to start cricket. She came up with the name for the team “The Studley Stars” and now we have a fully functioning girls’ section with 2 brand new female coaches. 14 girls all U11 playing and training every week and it’s all down to her enthusiasm.
Lola is extremely welcoming to anyone new to the club and ensures everyone is looked after. We are so proud of her. As well as that she helps out all the time. She takes the register for All Stars, helps her dad take the orders for the club BBQs, helps set up all the All Stars equipment, tidies up. In fact she doesn’t stop. We are very lucky to have her at our club.
Mary Glasby – Game Changer Award
Mary is a worthy recipient of this year’s Game Changer reward. She has undertaken the role of captain in Knowle and Dorridge’s first ever Women’s side, helping guide and develop younger players coming through their girls pathway. As well as having an active role and keen interest in developing women and girls cricket at a club level, Mary is also a Cricketeer at Edgbaston, volunteering on Match Days supporting spectators and the stadium as well as sitting on the Chance to Shine Youth Advisory Board, helping guide Chance to Shine on changes young people would like to see across their programmes and develop more cricket opportunities for all.
Iain Ward – Unsung Hero Award
Iain first joined the club as a parent of his two boys, Sam and Tom, who began playing for Corley CC back in 2012. He quickly became part of the furniture and has sat on the committee in various roles since. He has been Fixture Secretary, Vice Chairman and Secretary, holding two posts in the same year at one point.
Iain’s presence at the club is rather frequent. He attends virtually all senior and junior games as well as being there for Chance To Shine and County games to be used at our club. Iain has played a huge hand in recent times in securing grants for our new 4 lane nets, a new kitchen, new changing rooms, storage facilities etc.
Iain has also played a large part in our U17s and U18s team who have come through the ranks over a 10 year period and are now all playing senior cricket. He was their scorer for practically every game, and again, the go to man! Iain is the calming influence, the rock of our club that we would all be lost without.
Richard Hargett – Growing the Game Award
Richard has worked tirelessly, unselfishly and effectively to deliver games of cricket for all Junior ages from U11 through to U17 over the past 7 years. He has been and continues to be inventive and flexible in his approach, to ensure some sort of game is played, whenever the conditions and circumstances are difficult, which has maximised the number of competitive cricket hours for each and every Junior at our club and of course in turn the opposition players.
He has been my inspiration to get into coaching cricket and has taught me so much about how to adapt and overcome the challenges faced in organising cricket matches, league programs and friendly/training matches. Shipston is a very rural club with a small catchment area and but has managed to punch above its weight in producing junior cricket talent, due in a very large way to Richard’s endeavour to get the players as much game time as possible.
He does this undemonstratively, humbly and independently, asking for minimum resource. But at the same time, he works extremely well with parents and other volunteer coaches to co-ordinate and facilitate the arranging of games, such that every opportunity to play is seized.
Pickwick Cricket Club – Cricket Innovator Award
Pickwick CC has made huge improvements in 2023. The club has made a massive difference in the local community by starting a youth section which is affordable, hiring experience coaches and organising teams at most age groups.
It has started a girls’ section with over 40 girls joining and regularly attending and playing matches. It has started a women’s team. They have overcome cultural barriers and got a new generation of girls playing. The club has thought differently and introduced new things to socialise the environment, for example doing a deal with local caterers to run a Grill Hatch every evening and weekend so players, families and spectators can always eat.
The club has induced a cohort of local businesses to sponsor advertising boards which cover the entire circumference of the ground. Add in a new 4 bay net system, scorebox and a pavilion refurbishment and you can understand why Pickwick is becoming the local club of choice. They now plan to convert the neighbouring park into a new ground.
Andy Lloyd – SafeHands Award
From the outset of the Safe Hands System, Andy has taken up the task on behalf of Harborne CC with great enthusiasm and dedication. The task is a thankless one but probably even more so with a club with as many senior and junior teams as Harborne have.
Andy has maintained the Harborne site, entries and DBS verifications with real diligence and ensured that the club can deliver cricket with peace of mind that they are achieving the highest safeguarding standards. The work Andy has put in has allowed Harborne CC’s cricket to remain at the forefront of cricket offers across the county.
Geoff Edmunds – Volunteer Grounds Management Team of the Year
Geoff Edmunds and his team are absolutely brilliant at Kenilworth CC. They host a huge number of junior fixtures, adult fixtures, women’s and girls’ cricket, county age group cricket and softball training at their ground, and Geoff is always keen to make sure that the ground is playable and that people get to play cricket at Kenilworth CC. He can also be seen as a parking attendant, barman, helps set the scoring system up and is always the first to remove the numerous covers and sheets.
The grounds surroundings have seen some considerable changes in recent years, however Geoff and his teams enthusiasm to produce a fantastic cricket ground is remarkable and they are excellent recipients of this award.
Ted Hough – Official of the Year
Ted is a qualified umpire from Nuneaton, and has been umpiring across Warwickshire for a very long time. Including umpiring on Saturdays in the Warwickshire County Cricket League, Wednesdays in the Coventry District Cricket League and Thursdays in the Nuneaton midweek League. Ted’s longevity and commitment to umpiring is a example to all that cricket is a life-long game and we are lucky to have him officiating in Warwickshire.
Nick Archer – Special Recognition
Nick’s award is to recognise his long and successful tenure as the General Manager of the Birmingham & District Premier League, a role he now retires from after 23 seasons. (He continues as Chair of the National Counties Association and is President of Staffordshire CCC). Nick is widely recognised as one of the Country’s leading cricket administrators showing shrewd judgement, impeccable impartiality and selfless graft which has seen
the B&DPCL flourish. It was quite an achievement to slim down the league in 2018 to only 24 Club 1st teams and serves as an example of the administrative & political skills needed as well as the esteem he is held in. Much of the respect for Nick comes from an acknowledgement of his fine record as a cricketer and captain for Walsall and Staffordshire in golden eras for the Club and County. He played for 29 years in Walsall’s first team and was a tough batsman to get out; such an obstinate opponent all round that Nick was even selected for England amateurs. This tenacity and stamina has been reflected in his excellent career as an administrator.
A shining light of Midlands Cricket for over 50 years, he leaves a great legacy for the league and thousands of cricketers; well done Torch!
Graham Seal – Special Recognition Award
Graham has been General Manager of the Warwickshire County Cricket League for 15 years but has now decided to take well deserved retirement. During Graham’s tenure the League has grown to over 220 teams and 80 clubs with the smooth incorporation of the West Midlands 3rd XI League and B’ham League 2nd teams being managed with consummate ease.
Graham’s skill as an administrator is incredible and probably unsurpassed. His genius with fixtures is widely recognised and he oversees the majority of fixture generation for the entire West Midlands area. These skills were really highlighted during the pandemic when the Warwickshire League won accolades for its incredibly efficient come back. Graham has worked tirelessly to manage the issues which inevitably always crop up in League cricket, and post pandemic there does seem to be a greater prevalence. Graham has shown huge conscientiousness to deal with these matters as thoroughly and swiftly as possible, and always with integrity.
Graham also umpires, supports the Nuneaton & District Thursday League along with this wife Olwyn, and runs a company specialising in cricket administration………….now the allure of the golf course is strong…..those rounds in the sun will be richly deserved.
Congratulations to all those named above, your hard work and dedication doesn’t go unnoticed.