School bucks trend with cricket
A school with a proud cricketing heritage is defying claims that the sport is in decline among young people.
Cricket is thriving at The Grove School, Balderton, where at least half the 920 pupils — boys and girls — play the game in PE lessons.
The school also has strong links with Balderton Cricket Club, where a number of pupils play.
A recent national survey suggested that fewer than one in ten school pupils played the game.
An assistant head at The Grove, Mr David Smith, said: “There are still a lot of interested staff here who are very focused about developing cricketers at the school.”
Mr Smith has taught at the school for nearly 40 years and helped to develop many young cricketers.
The school’s links with Balderton Cricket Club began when Mr Smith started playing for the club in 1971 and have grown stronger since.
Sixth-former Jack Beckett (17) has played for the club’s 1st XI for the past two seasons.
Jack, who is about to take A/S levels in PE, French, geography and maths, began playing the shorter version of the game designed for children, Kwik Cricket, while at Coddington Primary School.
He has been playing at Balderton Cricket Club since he was 11. His interest in the game came through his father, Mr David Beckett, who also played cricket locally.
During the season he plays three times a week — twice at the weekend and once midweek.
In January, 2005 Jack visited Sri Lanka with Balderton’s overseas player, Ishan Ratnayaka, who is Sri Lankan, to train with a club in Colombo.
He said the influence of teachers like Mr Smith and the school’s head of PE, Mr Alan Wilkinson, were important in his development as a cricketer.
The growing demands of the national curriculum have been blamed for cricket dying out in state schools.
Jack said he would have to miss a couple of weeks of the season because of exams, but he would begin playing again at the end of May and carry on until September, proving academic studies can still be combined with sport.
He said he would like to see more done to encourage younger pupils to join cricket clubs.
“You can build from that,” he said.
Cricket at The Grove is aimed at pupils aged 11-14. After 14 they choose which sports to take part in during PE.
Mr Smith said around 30 of each year group, one in six pupils, chose to continue with cricket after the age of 14.
Older pupils are also involved in the school’s Junior Sports Leaders Award scheme.
As part of the award, 15 and 16-year-olds go into local primary schools and teach Kwik Cricket.
“There is a great love for cricket in the school,” he said.
“Staff are always looking for pupils with ability. The youngsters know what to do and where to go to develop.”
Mr Smith said there had been a shift away from cricket in schools to local clubs.
But he said schools still had an important role to play in developing the cricketers of the future.
“Times change and the emphasis changes,” he said. “It is happening nationally.”
Among the successful cricketers who attended The Grove were the former Nottinghamshire captain, Paul Johnson, and former Lincolnshire captain Mark Fell.
Mr Fell, who is now director of cricket at Lincolnshire County Cricket Club and head coach for the Lincolnshire Cricket Board, said the main reason a lot of schools had stopped playing cricket was because fewer teachers were interested in the sport.
He works in schools around Lincolnshire and said he could tell which had teachers who had a passion for cricket.
“I certainly would not have come on as much as I did without people like David Smith,” he said.
“It is a massive thing to have a teacher who is really passionate about cricket.”
Mr Fell’s love of cricket was nurtured under the guidance of teachers at the school and also at Farndon Cricket Club.
He played for Nottinghamshire for five years before moving to Lincolnshire, where he played for 20 years — 12 as captain.
He said a major change from when he was at school was that there were no sporting seasons any more.
“The football season used to end in April and the cricket season went from April to September,” he said.
“Now football goes on all year.”
He said today’s youngsters also had a lot more to do with their spare time and agreed there had been a shift away from cricket in school.
“The ECB focuses on clubs more than the schools now,” he said.
