Cricket East

The Lord’s Taverners Wicketz programme and Cricket East’s partnership through its ECB Core City Programme is seeing us bring communities together in Luton through cricket while addressing local issues such as crime, extremism and assisting with the integration of refugees in the town.

Designed to tackle disadvantage, Wicketz is a year-round, weekly, free community cricket programme for children living in deprived areas across the UK and in Luton we have already seen the benefits of Wicketz at hubs based at:

• Luton Town and Indians Cricket Club,
• People’s Park (Hightown),
• Stockwood Park Academy (Farley Hill),
• Crawley Green Sports and Social Club,
• Hart Hill and
• Lutonian Cricket Club

Below are some assertions and claims that have been made in the media about Luton that we set out to engage, resolve, reduce and/or eliminate through educating young people in the town through Wicketz:

• Increasing violent and exploitative crime
• The founder of the English Defence League was born in Luton, this is a far-right, Islamophobic organisation in the United Kingdom.
• Luton has a growing Muslim population and has been a hot-bed of radical activity. The extremist group al-Muhajiroun has also been very active in the town. The 7/7 bombers assembled in Luton, before travelling to London to carry out their attacks - click here to read more
• Geo-political tensions that created religious barriers amongst Muslim, Sikh and Hindu communities
• Luton had been named the worst place in the UK by Reddit users - click here to read more
• Some parts of Luton were listed in the top 10% of most deprived nationally

Our videos below outline the successful strategies we deployed for making a change in a town like Luton:

Intervention and crime reduction strategy

Watch BBC Look East’s Report on Wicketz working in partnership with Cricket East and Storm Gym on Combat Cricket, which uses cricket together with Marshall arts to channel aggression into something positive - please click here to find out more

Reducing isolation and vulnerability - Refugee integration strategy

Watch a BBC Inside Out Documentary on Afghan Refugees benefiting from the game of cricket in Luton - please click here to find out more

Tackling segregation and division using sports diplomacy

Click the link below to watch ‘The Power of Cricket’, with communities in the town coming together thanks to the Cricket World Cup Trophy Tour on the back of England’s success in 2019 - please click here to find out more

The Lord’s Taverners and Cricket East have gone above and beyond through Wicketz & ECB Core City Programme in Luton to make a difference. Our efforts and strategies are being looked at nationally and internationally, and we have been nominated for, and won, local and national awards for our work in the community.

We remain committed to developing our work further.

Please contact:

Lords Taverners Senior Wicketz Development Officer: Amran Malik Amran.Malik@cricketeast.co.uk
Cricket Easts Diverse Communities Officer/Luton Core City Lead: Dave Summers dave.summers@cricketeast.co.uk if you feel you are able to support us further in this regard.