6 minute read
State of Play
Independent schools may well have the best facilities, but cricket is not dead in state schools, as Huw Turbervill reports.
Red Rose: Ormskirk have one of the strongest girls’ teams in schools cricket
Rugby and football boots trample over muddy outfields now, cries of “yes”, “no” and “wait” replaced by “scrumdown” and “corner”.
The Cricketer put in some miles this summer covering schools cricket at these venues, helping to inform us who should make our top 100 in The Playing Fields of England 2018.
We marvelled at the facilities of Merchant Taylors’ School, Northwood, as they played host to Reading Blue Coat (12 grass squares!); they talked of how T20 is playing an increasing role in the fixture list… but then we heard a different message from former Essex allrounder Graham Napier. Now master in charge of cricket at RHS in Holbrook, Suffolk, he told us, while watching the match against Framlingham College: “I would like to play more declaration cricket so the boys can see how good it can be when played in the right spirit and manner.” We also took in a trip to Woodhouse Grove in West Yorkshire (a lovely setting close to Brontë Country near Bradford), although the match against Leeds Grammar was sadly rained off.
We also chronicled splendid deeds: Tom Banton hitting 155 off 61 balls to help King’s College, Taunton, against Sherborne; the Mousley brothers, Alex, Dan and Tom, all hitting centuries in the same week for Bablake School in Coventry; Lewis Bedford making Cranleigh School’s highest ever score (172, against RGS Guildford); and Freddie Fairey reaching 1,000 runs for King’s Ely at the age of 13, still with six games to go.
It is fair to say that in compiling our top 100, we do receive letters asking why more state schools are not on the list. We are rigorously independent in our selection process. We choose the best in terms of how many cricketers are being catered for, standard of facilities, quality of opposition and so on. We recognise meteoric rises and year-on-year achievements.
Beechen Cliff
Prince Henry's High School
South Gloucestershire College
Ormskirk School
We do not take into account how the pupils arrived at the school – whether they are local youngsters who go to their nearest state, grammar-school intake or their parents are fee-paying.
There are four non-selective state schools on this year’s list: Beechen Cliff (Bath); Prince Henry’s High School (Worcester); South Gloucestershire & Stroud College (Bristol) and Ormskirk School (Lancashire); and there are five grammar schools. We would all like to see more. First and foremost we love cricket at this magazine. We want to see everyone play it – boys and girls, state and non-state, of all ages.
My son, 13, goes to a state school, Carshalton Boys Sports College. I was overjoyed when they played some games last summer. They took on an independent school, Cumnor House in South Croydon. A lad called Veer Patel (who is expected to play for Surrey – no pressure!) scored a brilliant century with my son bowling. It was just great that the game was even happening at all. Of course everyone acknowledges that state schools that make it on to the list have done fantastically well. Why are there not more?
An expert on schools cricket attributes some it as a legacy of the Houghton Report on teachers’ salaries in 1974. “It gave teachers a modest pay rise and established what hours they should work, but the law of unintended consequences meant that they now worked to rule, suddenly stopping taking teams out of hours, at weekends and so on,” he told us.
“Cricket pitches have also been difficult to maintain, and there was also preference for sports that kept everybody occupied, like volleyball or basketball. With cricket, of course, you have 11 in the field, two batters, and at a push two more who are waiting to go into bat. That leaves seven not directly involved at any one time, ‘making daisy chains’.”
Things have changed a little, he reflects, in that PE teachers – rather than geography or English masters, for instance – now take the teams, and that is part of their job, but that is not altogether a good thing. “Because they are so competitive,” he suggests, “there has been some rather unfortunate, over-competitive, knock-on behaviour.”
Gill Richards Teacher at Prince Henry’s
Derek Brewer Ex-MCC chief executive
Steve Kirby The top man on the playing side at the MCC Cricket Academy
Despite limited money and facilities, Beechen Cliff compete against independent schools on a tough circuit in the south-west. They won the Monkhouse League in 2016 for the first time in 10 years.
Simon Hinks (ex-Kent & Gloucestershire) is the professional at South Gloucestershire & Stroud College. This sixth-form sports academy in Bristol has only ever received the top ranking of ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted since its inception a decade ago. In 2015 they beat a strong Millfield side in the National Schools T20.
Then there is Prince Henry’s, who have made remarkable progress in girls’ cricket. Gill Richards, a former England player and the first female on the Lord’s groundstaff, is a member of the PE department. Theschool competes against the local independent schools in the later stages of the County Cup.
And finally there is Ormskirk, renowned for their girls’ cricket – winners of the Lady Taverners Competition in 2013, 2015 and finalists in 2017, Chance to Shine winners in 2013 and finalists for 2016.
Great achievements.
The quest goes on for a cricket renaissance in the state sector. MCC, under Derek Brewer, who has just departed as chief executive, launched a coaching programme in 30 of the 50 state primaries in Westminster. He acknowledges the challenges: “It’s time, it’s exams, it’s commitments of staff,” he told The Cricketer. “When I was a kid I went to a state school, and there was time in the curriculum, exams weren’t all-consuming in the summer term and staff were encouraged to coach cricket. The pressure on the state schools is phenomenal now. At private schools you have the facilities as well, but the playing fields are going. The London Playing Fields Foundation is doing great work, but the fields are still disappearing. It’s a very different scenario now but we have to look at it a little differently so you may not play on grass, you may play on a different surface.”
Steve Kirby, head of coaching at MCC, is another who is championing the game in the state sector. “The key is to bring more families back to cricket,” he told The Cricketer. “If you can get mum involved with her son or daughter’s development by bringing them to clubs, that is the key… Secondary schools are not signposting enough to clubs. We are trying to link schools and local cricket clubs so the same teachers and activators are involved at both – that is what our community hubs are trying to achieve: a symbiotic relationship.” So there is clear evidence that cricket is being pushed in both the independent and parts of the state sector. Long may that continue.
