Wicketz residential impact
"This has been the best trip of my life! I met so many new people and played on a proper cricket pitch, I felt like a pro."
This is a sentiment that will have been shared by many participants of the Lord’s Taverners Wicketz programme this summer, as young people from the charity’s 17 Wicketz projects across the UK enjoyed the chance to spend three days away from home at cricket facilities they wouldn’t normally have access to.
The 2025 summer has seen the largest number of Wicketz residentials ever delivered in the charity’s history. Ampleforth College, Millfield School, Arundel Castle, Malvern College and Repton School all hosted potential once in a lifetime experiences for over 250 boys and girls aged 10-19 from some of the UK’s most deprived areas across the school summer holidays.
Our last Wicketz residential of the summer at Repton School proved to be our biggest girls’ residential so far, with 80 girls from 11 counties coming together for three days of cricket, friendship and life skills workshops with partners Her Game Too, FablittleBag, Take Her Lead and Maiden Cricket.
The cricket facilities on offer at each of these venues are high class, and something all the aspiring young cricketers attending will not have benefited from before. Every location enables the charity to host invaluable life skills workshops focusing on topics such as mental health, inclusion, youth voice and empowerment, working alongside partners such as Sport in Mind and Take Her Lead – all of which are vital for personal development and tool young people with the skills they need to fulfil their potential.
For many of the young people who attended one of the five festivals, this would have been the first time they have experienced living away from home for multiple nights on their own. The residentials, which can bring people together from places as far reaching as Glasgow and Plymouth, also give participants a chance to meet peers from other regions of the country who they would not have interacted with before. The opportunity to share experiences, challenges and make new friends through the game of cricket is significant, and past residentials have shown these friendships to become long lasting ones.
As one of the participants at our girls residential said: “Before Wicketz I thought there was something wrong with me because I got bullied at school. But being here has shown me I’m not the problem, I’ve made friends and feel better about myself.”
In addition to games of cricket, participants received high level coaching at the high-class facilities on offer. For example, at Millfield School, former England Assistant Coach Mark Garaway offered his expertise to the participants that made the trip to the southwest.
At Millfield and Repton School, the youngest ever female umpire, Scarlett Hale talked about her journey into the professional game with participants, offering a unique insight into the dedication, skills, and resilience needed to succeed at the highest level of umpiring. The interactive sessions gave participants the chance to explore the many ways to be involved in cricket beyond playing. Young people learned how to signal like a professional umpire, practiced decision making activities, and worked through real in-game scenarios, all while gaining a deeper understanding of the sport’s rules and nuances.
Scarlett’s story and hands-on approach left participants motivated, proving that age is no barrier to achieving big ambitions in cricket.
Sport in Mind, the leading mental health sports charity in England and Wales, delivered a workshop at Arundel for Wicketz participants from Southampton, Luton and Crawley. This covered the importance of good mental health, how it can be impacted by sport and the importance of physical activity.
Bristol Wicketz participant, Isaac, who attended the Millfield residential, shared just how important Wicketz and these residential experiences, have been for him: “Wicketz helps me express myself and show people who I want to be. I wanted to go to Wicketz because when I was little, I had a bit of an anger problem. I got frustrated with other people as well as myself, I didn’t really like working as a team back then.
Wicketz has helped me quite a lot with that emotion. When I first started going to sessions no one knew me, I didn’t know anyone but after a couple of weeks I met some people who have stayed with me, and that helped me open up a bit. Its just really good to now be part of a team that has also gone through these challenges. Going through it with them makes it a lot more reassuring.
Wicketz just helps so much. I feel like my voice is heard. I don’t think I would have got in to cricket or where I am right now without Wicketz.”
Isaac's Story
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