Burnley Football in The Community X Lancashire Cricket Foundation
The journey with BFC in the Community started over 12 months ago and is continuing to expand at a rapid rate! Here are just some of the opportunities the partnership has generated over the last few months:
Walking cricket, now has a regular group of participants, meeting weekly and enjoying the social conversations as well as developing their cricketing skills. They have started playing some friendly matches against other walking cricket groups across the County including the group from Urmston, Manchester.
Cross sport training took place with the BFC in the Community team taking part in two National Programme Cricket Activator training courses. This enabled them to add another sport to their programmes, expand their knowledge and inspire some to look at getting more involved with coaching cricket again.
Throughout the school holiday period, following the training of the team, cricket was delivered throughout each holiday programme, using the All Stars and Dynamos sessions. This gave the participants a great first experience of cricket, signposts to further cricket sessions and a T-shirt to feel part of the team! Over 140 young people have had chance to give cricket a go through this programme.
The newly formed cricket academy with Nelson and Colne College, with young cricketers with dreams to continue to study and play the game has been set up since September 2023. With a strong group of over 40 young players involved, with weekly social sessions and weekly team training the group is going from strength to strength. They have benefitted from donated kit and equipment from LCF, visits to Emirates Old Trafford and training sessions in the indoor cricket centre as well as attending a cricket activator course to start them on their coaching journey.
Quotes from Student
"The Cricket Academy has helped me improve my skills, gain confidence, and grow as a player." Iby
“The cricket academy helped me to improve my bowling skills and also my batting skills I really enjoying to playing in this academy.” Zaki
From the success of the All Stars holiday sessions, Berties Cricket Stars has been set up as a weekly session for 5 to 8 year olds to access cricket. These are run by the BFC in the Community team at Leisure Box and are perfect for those who just want to give cricket a go and enjoy meeting new people.
The delivery team has a full-time cricket development officer in post with Wynand Van Wyngaard taking a lead and is expanding to include a further coach due to the success of the programmes. Wynand has spent time supporting local clubs, signing junior players to those clubs and putting in place exciting plans for the future of the cricket.
“What a wonderful first year. To watch the BFCitC x Lancashire Foundation cricket program grow from just a concept into a space where a diverse range of players across age groups – from 4 years old all the way to one 90th birthday being celebrated next month – can come together to play the game they love will always be one of my career highlights.
My vision and hope for the cricket programme is to create an environment where young people can grow to where they feel confident enough in their skills and themselves to go teach others in their communities.” – Wynand
As we look to the future there are some exciting elements on the horizon with funding confirmed for a winter indoor competition, a women and girls focus on both playing and coaching along with developing further holiday provision with new coaches and officials.
Chanelle McManus, Sports Development Manager at BFCitC said “Our partnership with LCF began with a simple conversation about how we could incorporate more cricket into our holiday programmes. Since then, it has evolved into a much more impactful collaboration, bringing significant benefits to the communities we serve. Over the past 18 months, LCF has been an excellent partner, offering valuable opportunities for our coaches to complete their Level 1 Cricket qualification. This has positively influenced several initiatives, including the Premier League Primary Stars programme. Additionally, LCF has played a key role in supporting the cricket academy at Nelson and Colne College and in establishing our walking cricket sessions. We are excited to continue this partnership and have ambitious plans to further grow the sport of cricket across East Lancashire.”
Jen Barden, LCF Executive Director said ‘It’s a fantastic partnership and really demonstrates the power of working closely together to achieve shared objectives. The cricket provision has grown at a significant rate, with a huge number of people giving it a go for the first time through the partnership. The programme doesn’t stop now, we have great aspirations to continue to grow our offer across the women’s game, inclusion and building a workforce of the future through apprenticeships. I’m excited at how far we have come but looking forward cant wait to see how much impact we can have in the future! We are always looking for other partners, please get in touch if you would like to explore this further.’