“Will this actually do anything?” It is a sincere question posed by a senior member of the Lutonians Cricket Club but one that contains so much exasperation it may as well be rhetorical. Theirs is a story trying to avoid a bitter ending.
Originally a cricket club associated with Vauxhall Motors, the closing of the factory 20 years ago meant that if members wanted to keep playing, they would need to find a new home as theirs was sold off. Finding it was not an issue – Luton council gave them a plot six years ago that hugs a roundabout on New Bedford Road, with banks emanating out of the earth from two sides furthest away from the road creating colosseum-like seating for spectators.
The problem came when they applied for a grant from Sport England to improve their facilities. They have been rejected each time.
Lacking the most basic training equipment, they punch above their weight in league and cup competitions. But this predicament, of non-existing nets and lousy support, contributes to the reality that the next generation is not coming through, let alone keeping up. A vicious cycle is gathering pace leaving even the most loyal servants concerned about the viability of the club they love.
Their applications have been rejected because they are within a well-struck six of another team – Luton Town and Indians Cricket Club – who have most of the mod-cons. Despite being a different entity entirely, Sport England says Lutonians should use their facilities – a bit like a council throwing out your request to erect a shed because you could hop the fence and use your neighbours.’
Luton Town and Indians and their 200-plus members are equally bemused by the assertion. Lutonians do not have the resources to rent the nets in any case because of a lack of money. The club will go in for funding again and again, until they get what they need or lose their will. The latter seems unlikely.
But there are only so many times they can tell their story and plead their case. It is the first time we hear the anguished “will this actually do anything?” query during this deep dive into the state of recreational cricket.
Grassroots, inner-city and amateur cricket faces, at best, an uncertain future in the United Kingdom. Over the last two months of travelling the country for this article it was stark the variety of groups – races, classes, sexes and geographical spreads – who are either angry, worried, resigned or a mixture of all three when drawn on the prospects of the game and their clubs. Each has had their stories told in the past but too often that is where it ends. “We always get people coming asking about the problems,” said a near-lifelong member of Handsworth Cricket Club in Birmingham. “One day someone will come with an answer.”
Handsworth is one of the last remaining Caribbean clubs in the Midlands. Over the last two decades, other such clubs have closed – a reflection of the drastic decline in Afro-Caribbean representation at amateur and professional level. At present, there are fewer than 20 active county cricketers from an Afro-Caribbean background, compared to almost a hundred around 40 years ago.
While immigrants from the Caribbean brought over their love of the game to the UK, they have been unable to sustain it through the generations. Eaton Gordon has witnessed the decline in front his very eyes as he has grown up from a youngster taken to West Indies matches by his dad to his role now as the chairman of Handsworth and coach for the Warwickshire Cricket Board.
The moment he puts it down to was when, during the late 80s and early 90s, there was a drive from the ECB to quieten crowds which, he believes, was aimed at West Indies fans creating an atmosphere for their team to thrive when playing in England.
More stringent rules created a feeling that Caribbean fans and their ways were no longer welcome and triggered what has been an inescapable slide for the community. “Look at Twenty20 cricket now and the atmosphere they are trying to promote with music and drinking,” says Gordon. “That’s what we were doing with cricket back then.”
Like many others, he believes a shot in the arm could come from a representative from the community making it all the way to the top and having the same effect as Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid have had on South Asian communities. While the number of black cricketers in recreational cricket dwindle, just 10 minutes from Handsworth, in Perry Hall Park, the South Asian scene is thriving.
Perry Hall Park is a Hackney Marshes-style mecca of cricket with 15 pitches serving 68 teams of the Birmingham Cricket League across the weekend. The players, the majority South Asian, come from a variety of ages, with their own experiences of the English system. And what was fascinating to hear was that they all, to a man, believe the glass ceiling has been cracked.
Many, if not all, argued that Moeen and Rashid – two British-born Pakistani Muslims – had illustrated in their progress that the national side is no longer fraught with prejudice. In fact, the biggest concern was the lack of representation a level down in county cricket. Despite providing 30% of the recreational pool, only 4% of professional cricketers are of South Asian background. As such, the ECB launched its South Asian Action Plan in May with an 11-point programme aimed at addressing those numbers while also looking to understand the community better.
Players at the park had their own theory as to why so few played professionally. Some felt South Asians play under more scrutiny and are afforded a shorter grace period. Others simply felt that the game did not offer them any security, particularly to those from low-income families.
However, it was the words of a 22-year-old who was looking to work his way into the county game that stood out to dispute the gloomier perspectives. “It’s down to you to go and get it if you want it,” he said. “Some people use being Asian as an excuse. But look at Mo and Rash – they’ve got to the top. It’s down to you as an individual to make it work.”
The punchiness was admirable. Moeen and Rashid have shown them the way. In this young man’s view, now it is down to the individuals. But another aspect that came to the fore in the chat with him was that, more and more, second and third generation South Asians are more adept at juggling the challenge of dual nationality. In fact, juggling is probably not the right word because both tags are worn proudly. Young cricketers speak openly about being inspired by the likes of Virat Kohli or Mohammad Amir in a bid to represent England.
As a sports-mad kid of the 90s, my loyalties were quizzed. The schoolyard jibes were not quite to Norman Tebbit standards – the Tory MP questioned the allegiances of the South Asian and Caribbean diaspora who did not support the England cricket team – but there was still a degree of cynicism, especially when other sports were raised.
A question I was often posed was how I could wear a Sri Lankan cricket shirt yet support the England football team. It was never one I could respond to effectively because I was always searching for the “correct” answer. There is not one. Nor does there need to be and that is what, refreshingly, young British Asians now realise.
Nothing summed this up better than the first England-India Twenty20 in Manchester at the start of July. Around two-thirds of the crowd were made up of India fans, the majority living in this country, cheering India to victory and then sticking around to support the England football team in their World Cup knockout match against Colombia which was shown on the big screen.
The noise of the celebration that greeted Eric Dier’s winning penalty in the shootout eclipsed any other that day.
Of the tentative leads that turned into something worthwhile during this investigation one thread linked them all: they all just want to play. The appetite for cricket is strong in most parts of the country. eastern European children were attending, having picked up the game from their friends of more traditional cricket regions. The country’s multiculturalism is such that such a move could improve the game’s problem areas, opening itself up once more to the working classes, rekindling that fire among young Afro-Caribbeans and girls to ensure cricket can move forward to reflect and be embraced by modern England. It is still not too late.
