Rushden and Higham Town Cricket Club, Northamptonshire, received a £5,000 grant from the National Lottery in 2001 to build a non-turf wicket to support their then three-team youth set up.
Just short of 25 years later, their youth section has expanded to eight junior sides and are a thriving community hub.
We spoke to RHTCC men’s first team captain, Ben Paine, who started as a junior at the club in the early 2000s and has seen the transformation investing in facilities can have first-hand on both the club and local area:
I vividly remember the year we got the grant because it was just after our 100-year-old clubhouse had burnt down. It was an accident - down to faulty wiring to my memory - but I remember it shaking us as a club and a community even from a kid’s perspective. I’d have only been eight or nine years old.
Back then, we had three junior sides (Under 11s, 13s and 15s), all competing in the local leagues and all competing for space to practice and play. We shared a pretty rough grass wicket with the rest of the club, but it just wasn’t fit for frequent use. That’s why the all-weather pitch was such a game changer for us.
Suddenly, we had a reliable surface to train and play on, it meant we could practise regularly and take the pressure of the grass wicket so both the junior and senior sections could play on a functional strip. It made such a difference.
From that point on we’ve just continued to grow and put funding and grants back into the club. Over the past 20 years, we’ve grown from three junior teams to eight. We now run two Under 11s teams, alongside Under 13s, 15s, 17s, and we’ve introduced All Stars and Dynamos cricket to encourage the younger kids to get involved. At the moment, we’ve got just short of 75 juniors playing at the club, and I can honestly say that without the improvements to our facilities, we wouldn’t be where we are today.
Looking back, the 2005 Men's Ashes had a big impact too. There was a massive boom in kids wanting to play cricket, and we felt that surge right here at Rushden. Our Friday night training sessions were absolutely packed - it was the highlight of the week for us as kids!
Investing in our facilities has made the club a hub for our local community. It’s more than just a place to play cricket – it’s somewhere families and friends want to spend their time.
It’s funny how a few improvements can completely change the atmosphere at a club. When you have good facilities, people want to be there. Whether it’s parents bringing their kids for a quick net session during the holidays or players honing their skills, it all adds up.
The all-weather pitch we installed back in 2001 has seen so much action that we had to relay it around six or seven years ago. Every team, from juniors to seniors, uses it for training and we’ve added two more artificial wickets in the nets so we can keep up with the demand as more kids come through the ranks!
Having a strong youth set-up has been crucial for us. The juniors aren’t just playing for fun – they’re the future of the club. A good youth programme feeds into your senior teams. Without that pipeline of young talent, the club wouldn’t have a future.
We’re proud of the progress we’ve made, but we know there’s more to do. One of our biggest goals now is to grow the women’s and girls’ side of the club. We’ve got about 10 girls playing across the different age groups, but we want to build on that and make cricket more accessible for everyone. We’re also keen to engage more with disability cricket too – it’s an area we’re a bit behind on, but we’re determined to get there.
Looking back over the past two decades, it’s clear that the National Lottery grant we received in 2001 was a catalyst for so much of what we’ve achieved. It allowed us to create better facilities, grow our teams, and build a thriving community around cricket. We’re proud of what we’ve built, and we’re excited for what’s still to come.
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