Staffordshire Cricket Board

Staffordshire Cricket and Staffordshire County Cricket Club have today written to local MPs to express our joint concern at the threat to continued investment in cricket in Staffordshire. A consultation currently being held by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport into sporting events which should be listed could mean an income loss to cricket in England and Wales of at least £100m during a four year period. With loses of this magnitude the impact would be felt at all levels of the game.

Increased investment at all levels of cricket has generated impressive results with year on year increases in participation, focus clubs, volunteers and coaches in Staffordshire. Added to this at a national level the Men's, Women's and Disability teams have won their respective Ashes and last year the England Women's team won the ICC Women’s World Cup and the ICC Women’s World Twenty20.

Staffordshire Cricket’s ability to make significant investments in the grassroots and community cricket in the county and establish a successful performance pathway from schools and clubs through to the county teams and on to the England set up has been in large part due to the fact that ECB has been able to negotiate a fair market price for cricket with broadcaster who have demonstrated a desire and commitment to our sport. Accepting recommendations by the Davies review to list the home Ashes Test Series and the subsequent loss of income to the ECB and ourselves would have a disastrous impact on our ability to support and develop cricket in Staffordshire.

Gerald Williams, Chair of the Staffordshire Cricket Board, commented “During the 12 months to September 2008, Staffordshire Cricket saw continued increases in key areas of improvement for its 55 focus clubs; participation in the game of cricket increased by 5%; the number clubs achieving Clubmark accreditation increased by 8%, club membership went up by 13% and volunteer roles increased by 19%.”

Mr Williams continued, “The period from October 2008 to September 2009 saw that growth consolidated with a 30% increase in participation to over 14,500 participants; a 37% increase in Clubmarked clubs; a 17% increase in club membership with nearly 7,000 members of focus clubs; 30% and 28% increases in coaching and volunteer roles respectively. We are very concerned that the Davies Report proposal could seriously affect the grassroots and recreational game within our county and undo the good work that cricket has been working hard to sustain.”

Staffordshire Cricket has already committed to short term improvement targets in 2010 including increasing the number of Clubmark accredited clubs from 51 to 55, running a total of 13 Chance-2-Shine programmes within over 120 schools and increasing number of school teams taking part in cricket competition to well over 300.

Jason Britton, Cricket Development Manager for the county, said “Staffordshire Cricket runs 15 youth cricket teams for both boys and girls for county and district levels at age ranges from under-9 to under-17 catering for over 620 junior cricketers at representative level as well as a senior Women’s team; in addition Staffordshire County Cricket Club has a long established reputation as one of the premier non-first class county teams.”

Britton continued, “In the last six years Staffordshire Cricket has seen 20 of its young cricketers progress to first class county academies and contracts, with no less than four of our ranks representing England during the last two seasons. We continue to support a sustainable cricket workforce with a comprehensive Coach Education Programme. The last three years has seen over 500 coaches educated to ECB levels I, II and III with a coach tutor workforce of 14 being upskilled to support the safe and structured delivery of cricket in the county. The Davies proposal seriously jeopardises all elements of grassroots cricket provision and ongoing development of the recreational game.”

David Collier, ECB chief executive, said: "We are extremely concerned that should the government choose to accept the recommendations in the Davies review the entire structure of the game in this country could be undermined. Cricket is currently thriving across the country with more coaches, improved stadia, cricket returning to State schools through the Chance to Shine programme and world class support structures for the men's, women's and disabled teams. A loss of income of at least £100m over four years would have a devastating impact on our ability to maintain and improve cricket in this country and we would urge the Government to consider these wider implications before making any decisions."

Over the coming period Staffordshire Cricket will be working with stakeholders to ensure that the future of cricket in Staffordshire is protected and we are hopeful that the Government will consider returning to the current arrangement which allows quality coverage of cricket on paid for and free to air media platforms and ensures a level of investment to support and improve cricket in Staffordshire.

Help will be given to clubs in the coming days as we try to get the message out around Staffordshire.

Welcome to the Staffordshire Cricket Board website. The newly designed website is here to provide as much information to the cricket public of Staffordshire as possible.

We face many exciting and ever changing challenges within the world of cricket development and we will keep the website up to date to ensure everyone involved in the game can gain something from the site each time they visit.

Effective communication with all key stake holders of the game is of paramount importance to the Staffordshire Cricket Board ensuring cricket's longevity throughout all areas of the County and www.staffordshirecricket.co.uk will play a major role in helping us achieve this objective.

The Staffordshire Cricket Board in its current form is reaching its tenth year of ‘business’ and has in many ways gone unnoticed in the work completed. However, our new strategy not only looks at raising awareness of the day to day workings of the Board but also sets out our main objectives over the coming years in the various areas of responsibility we cover.

Responsibility is a word everyone is familiar with and from the perspective of the Staffordshire Cricket Board it is very simple. It is about creating and developing opportunities for all young cricketers to reach their potential whilst fuelling their desire for success.

The restructuring of the Staffordshire Cricket Board creates a more equitable two way process of responsibility. With representation from a wider range of the groups from the cricketing spectrum we are able to consult, work with and develop areas of the game we previously struggled to infiltrate. It is because of this we become more responsible and accountable to all those involved in the development and provision of cricket.

As a professional organisation we are constantly developing and growing with the ability to ensure representation at all Cricket Development Groups across the County which enables all affiliated clubs the opportunity to access and consult with the Cricket Development Officers.

Staffordshire is known as the ‘ Creative County’ and to ensure we continue developing opportunities to participate and succeed we need to be Creative as a County Board and as a wider Cricketing Family.

The Staffordshire Cricket Board, as part of their commitment to the national strategy for cricket - Building partnerships, has endorsed the Core Values and adopted them to ensure continuity and consistency from a national perspective is achieved locally within the sub region of Staffordshire.

The Staffordshire Cricket Board is exciting about working with all key partners and stakeholders to achieve a high quality delivery mechanism within the County and continuing to develop cricketers to the highest of standards.

Please feel free to browse around the site at your leisure and as we continue to build the different sections we hope we can continue to offer as a higher quality service as possible to all of the cricket loving public in Staffordshire

Once again thank you for taking time out to visit our site and please feel free to feedback any thoughts you have on the content of the site. You may also wish to visit our Play-Cricket Website.

Staffordshire Cricket Board