Long Ditton Cricket Club

When a lot of people think of village cricket they think of lazy summer afternoons, the sound of leather on willow, and a few ageing locals enjoying a ‘bit of a knock’.

But over recent years, cricket clubs across the UK have had to diversify to accommodate the demands of running a successful community sports club. This certainly applies to Long Ditton Cricket Club in Surrey, managed by Club Secretary Mark Lambert.

“As with so many cricket and sports clubs in the country, we rely on the hard grind of a dedicated few to keep the club going,” said Mark. “And when we launched our junior cricket scheme, which subsequently became very popular with local families and their children, the stresses and strains on the volunteer staff at the club hit at all time high.”

“The biggest problem I found was that we didn’t really know what the best way was to go about developing junior cricket at the club. Every decision was made without the help of hindsight or past experience, making the process far more painful than it should have been.”

With the popularity of junior cricket growing and the pressures that this was bringing on the club’s skeleton staff, Mark turned to a runningsports workshop for help and advice.

The runningsports portfolio, which has been developed in careful consultation with sports professionals and volunteer agencies, builds on previous schemes from Sport England to provide support and skills for sports volunteers. If enthusiasm is channelled and combined with the right tools, tactics and techniques, sports organisations can realise their full potential. runningsports aims to make this possible with a programme that includes:

• This website with free resources including Top Tips, best practice guides, volunteer case studies and FAQ’s
• Quick Guides covering a range of topics that impact sports volunteers, and suggestions on how to implement solutions
• Workbooks addressing a practical, hands-on approach with activities that allows volunteers to deal with issues their sports team, club or community organisation is facing
• Workshops for all sports dealing with the issues facing the volunteer work force. Accredited tutors, most with professional sports backgrounds lead the workshops

It was this last element that Mark in particular found beneficial when he attended a runningsports workshop entitled “Developing Partnerships with Clubs and Schools”.

“The runningsports workshop helped our club in two main ways. Firstly, it gave us the comfort that we had in fact been making the right decisions developing our junior cricket scheme. It was good to know we were doing it the right way. Secondly, it gave me a host of new ideas and process to put into practice back at the club.”

“Being a sports volunteer can be quite a lonely role, and having the chance to discuss problems that we had encountered at Long Ditton Cricket Club with other clubs’ volunteers gave me the confidence that we were not alone in what we had experienced over the years.”

Today, Long Ditton Cricket Club enjoys a flourishing junior cricket scene after Mark was able to work with the other volunteers and drive the club forward. Most recently, he took the Under-11’s team to The Oval during an international to take part in a demonstration on the outfield during the lunch break. “Without attending the runningsports workshop, I wouldn’t have known about the health & safety processes or medical requirements that I needed to cater for during that trip. It’s meant Long Ditton Cricket Club is a far better outfit for young cricketers in so many ways.”

Since the first workshop, Mark has attended a number of runningsports workshops. He is now – with runningsports’ help – pushing the club forward to achieving its Clubmark status, Sport England’s quality accreditation mark for sports clubs.

“To be a Clubmark club helps to tell parents and schools that we abide by rules and regulations that make Long Ditton junior cricket a safe environment. So this is very important to the future development of the club.”

So if you’re involved in a club out there that needs to improve elements of its set-up such as setting up a junior club, getting and keeping volunteers, be open to all members of the community, getting tax breaks, or working up a club development plan, Mark Lambert proves it really is possible to make some substantial changes just by using some of the powerful tools provided by runningsports. It certainly worked for him and Long Ditton Cricket Club.