How Sussex are helping plug cricket’s state-school talent drain

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Only six per cent of children in the United Kingdom are privately educated but, according to figures compiled by the educational charity The Sutton Trust last year in its Elitist Britain report, 59 per cent of the England men’s cricket team and 50 per cent of the women’s side attended private, fee-paying ‘independent’ schools.

They are numbers that not only prove how dependent the UK’s national summer sport is on the facilities and expertise private schools provide, but they highlight the huge talent pool that cricket is potentially missing simply by not giving state-educated children an opportunity to play.

It means that a privately educated child in Britain is over eight times more likely to play professional and international cricket than their state-school counterparts.

Worryingly, that dependency appears to be growing despite the work of initiatives such as Chance to Shine, which was established in 2005 to re-invigorate cricket in state schools, and programmes targeted at specific communities, including ACE and the South Asian Cricket Academy.

Attempting to address the issue is an initiative in Sussex, focused on state secondary-school children aged 13 to 15, when the drop-off in participation is most acute and many young people are lost from cricket.

The programme is creating four cricketing ‘hubs’ across the county, ensuring “every state-school educated child in Sussex will have no barriers to entry into the game and that they’ll never be more than 30-35 minutes away from a hub”.

‘Breaking Boundaries’ is the brainchild of Sussex-based entrepreneur and cricket fan Chris Goodman who, inspired to act by the experience of his own son, joined forces with the Sussex Cricket Foundation.

“It really began through looking at my son’s experience at a local club, Preston Nomads, where I would say 90 per cent of the children were from private schools,” Goodman tells The Athletic at Hove as we watch the first Breaking Boundaries finals day. “That’s not representative of every club, sure, but I started off by saying to that club: ‘Can we engage with state schools, have some sort of open day or whatever, to try to get them playing cricket?’. They were very supportive of that.

“If there’s an opportunity to do something at scale, that’s what I like to try to do, so I then approached Sussex and said: ‘Look, I want to do this with Preston Nomads. What chance is there to do something with you? If money was no object, what would you look to produce?’. I suggested the hub model, which very much coincided with their thoughts.

“It’s not feasible to put the kind of resources needed into 76 secondary schools in Sussex, so the idea is to have a critical mass of hub schools that have access to facilities and coaching, and then a wider programme that enables young people to come together for out-of-school clubs, holiday camps and a franchise competition where we have the finals here.

“It’s a model that is replicable nationwide. My vision would be to see this rolled out further afield.”

Goodman, co-founder of the telecoms and IT services provider Focus Group, has the enthusiasm and drive to try to make a difference — and, crucially, the wealth, too, with an estimated net worth of £212million ($282m), according to the Insider South East Rich List.

He has ploughed a considerable amount into this project, money that has been supplemented by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) and a growing number of sponsors, and hopes the four hubs competing in finals day — Ifield Community College in Crawley, Uckfield College, The Regis School in Bognor Regis and the Oathall Community College from Haywards Heath — will grow to 10 within the next few years. As it is, the scheme supports 169 students through half-term activity and 290 students through after-school cricket.

“It is costing me a lot of money, yes, but I’m passionate about it and it’s why today we’re talking about making it a sustainable model,” says Goodman. “I’ve been able to help with initial funding to get facilities into the schools and we’ll also be helping with the costs of coaching, but I want to be in a position where I can support this programme in different ways, so there are opportunities for businesses and benefactors to get involved.

“It’s fantastic to have ECB support and clearly they do amazing work in primary schools with Chance to Shine, but there does seem to be this almost dropping off a cliff at secondary-school level and you see that within the Sussex pathway.

“If you’ve had the opportunity to play cricket at primary school but haven’t joined a club, you won’t play if there’s nothing at your secondary school.

“So whether it’s secondary school children who have never played getting the opportunity to play or children who have already had a taste of cricket and enjoy it, this is making sure they have access to somewhere they can play.”

The first Breaking Boundaries finals day saw the hubs given coloured clothing and franchise names to give the event a modern feel — the first winners were the orange-clad ‘Sussex Flare’, the mid-Sussex team based out of Oathall Community College. Also watching were Sussex coach Paul Farbrace and the county’s T20 captain Tymal Mills, who were state-school educated.

“There was very little cricket in my schools,” says Mills, who grew up in Suffolk and started out with Essex before joining Sussex. He went on to play 16 T20 internationals for England. “We were reliant on what our teachers were interested in. For instance, in my middle school we were good at basketball because our PE teacher was a good basketball player and he was our coach.

“Cricket is a nuanced sport and requires specialist coaching to understand all the different rules and techniques. And on top of that you need facilities and equipment. So I can understand why state schools feel they can’t access cricket.

“I was conscious of the fact that I was in a bit of a minority as a state school kid when I came into the game. When I was in the England under-19 side, we went to Sri Lanka and, out of 18 lads on that tour, only three or four went to state schools. It was myself, Ben Foakes, Lewis Gregory and Adam Ball if I remember correctly. It was quite a stark contrast.

“At Sussex most of our local guys came through private schools because we have some brilliant ones. But it shouldn’t have to be that way, and, hopefully with the great work being done here, more kids will get the chance to play cricket through their state school.”

Farbrace makes the point that private schools do recruit talented young players from the state sector with scholarships so they are not necessarily a preserve for the elite.

“There are a lot of kids who are good at cricket who get to go and do their GCSEs and A Levels at private schools, so the stats don’t always tell the full story,” Farbrace tells The Athletic. “You look at the figures and think it must be an elite sport, but a lot of these kids are products of state schools who go down as private school kids in the stats.

“When I worked at Warwickshire, Rugby School went on tour to Barbados and brought Jacob Bethell back with them. Some years ago Dulwich College went to Barbados and brought back Chris Jordan to play for them. So it does happen that way, and that’s providing opportunities too. They have the facilities and they can do that.

“But we have to give opportunities to as many kids as possible. We can’t just hope they will go to a private school. There are a lot of kids who might be super talented but never have a chance to play cricket. An initiative like this is important on so many levels.”

A successful first finals day, with the children playing on one of the main pitches at the Hove County Ground, was a significant first step for Goodman in particular.

“This is just the beginning and, while it’s a lot of money to put behind a programme, there aren’t many other things I could find that would be as fulfilling and rewarding,” he says. “Ultimately it comes down to giving as many children as possible an opportunity. I’m in a privileged position to be able to help do these things.

“If we can build on this, then great.”