Yorkshire Cricket Board

Since 2017 and the launch of the ECBs Women’s Soft Ball Cricket Festival initiative over 2500 women have attended numerous soft ball festivals up and down the county, many of whom in doing so were picking up a bat and a ball for the first time. As a result of these festivals and the feedback received, 100s of these women have descended on cricket clubs across Yorkshire wanting more.

To facilitate this demand, in 2018 two Women’s Soft Ball Outdoor Cricket Leagues were launched in Sheffield and Calderdale & Kirklees, followed by three Indoor Soft Ball Leagues in South Yorkshire, Leeds and Harrogate running throughout the winter of 2018/19. Across these leagues 28 brand new women’s soft ball teams participated, allowing over 200 women and girls the opportunity to not only participate in the game but compete. What’s more, on a recent Coaching Young People & Adults course held in Sheffield funded by the Yorkshire Diamonds, 18 women became fully qualified coaches, with over 75% of those in attendance only starting their cricket journey 12 months previous at women’s soft ball festivals.

Soft ball cricket isn’t the only aspect of the Women & Girls game growing and changing either. In the past few months the Northern Women’s Cricket League has transformed, with the new Yorkshire Women & Girls’ Cricket League hosting 2 divisions alongside a T20 and Super 8s competition, housing 23 teams, a huge increase from 2017. What’s more, two of the teams signed up to the Super 8s division of the YW&GCL attended 2017 Soft Ball festivals playing cricket Furthermore, across Yorkshire 23% of all All Stars Cricket sign ups were girls, meaning over 1400 girls joined clubs throughout the summer of 2018. With more girls and women than ever before getting involved with the sport, we want to shout about these successes and throw the spotlight on the clubs, leagues, coaches and players themselves, in order to showcase our current players and inspire new ones in the months and years to come.

For this reason, all the social media profiles previously dedicated to promoting the numerous Women’s Soft Ball Cricket Festivals taking place across the county and celebrating the women involved have now changed, becoming the home of ALL Women & Girls Club Cricket across Yorkshire. From junior participation through to Women’s club hardball cricket, and the coaches and Women’s Soft Ball players in between, everything we can possibly share from the grassroots women and girls game will be found across these platforms. This isn’t to say that Women’s Soft Ball won’t continue to have a place on these pages, instead they will just form part of the wider range of content they will now be sharing.

From league game scores, to upcoming festivals, coaching courses and stories from clubs, coaches and players – the new pages will have it all, so if you don’t already like or follow us on Facebook/Twitter or Instagram the all-important details to do so can be found below…

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WGCCYorkshire/
Twitter: @WGCCYorkshire
Instagram: @yorkshirecb_wg