“We wanted to ensure that anyone can come to the ground and feel comfortable,” says Amy Brett, Derbyshire CCC’s Customer/Accessibility Liaison.
She added: “We wanted a space where anyone can go to have a moment to detox and destress. We know some people with sensory processing issues that love to come to the cricket and if they get overwhelmed, they have to leave.
“We basically ensured that if people do need some time away from the game, they can take that time, as much as they need, and still have a full day at the cricket.
“The room is match-facing with a really nice view of the pitch. So, if you need to take time away you can still watch what’s going on.”
Derbyshire opened their sensory room on April 6 during their County Championship fixture with Gloucestershire. The room, located in the pavilion, can be both booked in advance online and accessed on the day when required, allowing those who need it to attend matches worry free.
“Unless we’ve got a day where it’s completely booked out, it’s there for whenever you need it,” Brett said.
“We understand it’s hard to pre-book for these kinds of situations, so we want to keep it open as possible.
“We don’t want the room to get too crowded, as that defeats the purpose of it being there, so we’ve also got sensory bags. If someone is feeling a bit better, they feel like they can go outside but they don’t want the light sensitivity or the noise to be a disruption, you can rent out sensory bags, which include sunglasses, earplugs and some fidget toys.
“Instead of going from zero to 100, they can gradually go back into the day.”
The room was opened in partnership with The Whistle Foundation, a charity that works to enable children with SEND/sensory needs and children from disadvantaged backgrounds to watch professional sport, with the aim of providing every sporting stadium in professional cricket and football with a sensory room.
The room at the County Ground was a milestone as it was the first one The Whistle Foundation has opened.
Greg Rollason, Co-Founder of The Whistle Foundation, told derbyshireccc.com: “We are delighted to partner with Derbyshire County Cricket Club to bring our first sensory room to life.
“We are so pleased with the finished product and hope that children and young people from both home and away clubs will be able to enjoy access to sport in the ground, irrespective of their needs or struggles.”
The room itself is for anyone, regardless of age, and not just those with defined sensory issues. “It’s a room that’s for everybody,” said Brett.
“It’s open to everyone, more so to people who have sensory issues, processing issues, or issues with loud noises, however, we don’t want there to ever be a case where someone needs it and we say ‘you can’t use it.’
“Maybe it’s just that one day where they feel so overwhelmed and they need to take a break, and that’s absolutely fine. If we have the space, please use the room. There’s no judgement.”
The room has LED lighting, bubble tubes, soft toys, fidget toys, beanbags, 3D walls, soft texture amenities like blankets, mats on the ground, both soft and spiky, and light restricting windows - a variety of things to help calm people having a sensory episode and allow them to continue enjoying a day or a night at the cricket.
So far, the room has been very well received by those who have used it. “On the first day we brought people in from our foundation group. They loved it. We had a young girl in there running around the place and another boy in there commenting on how he loved the soft textures and the changes of textures in the room.”
Derbyshire is not the first county to open a sensory room, with Durham having one at Chester-le-Street and Warwickshire having one at Edgbaston, the latter notably allowing Danny Briggs’ autistic son Stan to watch his dad play.
“If it's a hot day, he's in the stands and it's really busy, the lights, the music whatever it may be - there's a lot there to overstimulate him or overwhelm him," Briggs told the BBC.
Stan himself added: “I wanted to watch him but the crowd was really overwhelming, and the speakers. But in here, it's really not."
This article was written by Adam Hopkins and first published in this week's edition of The Cricket Paper.