By Steve Morgan
For years, Kate Brown was the typical cricket naysayer. “I thought it was the most boring game ever,” she laughs.
“Particularly a Test match – it was like watching paint dry. I played French cricket on the beach with my brothers as a kid, that was about it.”
That was then, however.
Cricket conversion
Five years ago her daughter Callie – now 14 – joined Finchley CC and was immediately smitten. Brown herself has since undergone a conversion bordering on the Damascene. She talks now about the game with a breathless passion, a match for any devotee from Durham to Durban, Delhi to Dhaka.
She’ll rave about Jimmy Anderson’s latest magic spell, or Joe Root’s freshest masterpiece with the bat, and can be found out and about watching the Middlesex women – or any live cricket.
As grassroots stories go, it’s rousing stuff. For Brown and the good ladies of Finchley CC, Friday nights are now very much mum’s night, thanks to an initiative dreamed up by Sara Begg – workforce and mentoring lead for Middlesex women and girls’ cricket – and her committed team.
“It started with the idea of just getting people playing together at a club,” explains Begg. “Mums against each other at softball, mums against daughters – just playing a few games. Then confidence bred and they were asking about hardball cricket. The women’s development league started two years ago so they have regular competition now.”
The more serious players now look to win a spot in Finchley Gunns 1sts or 2nds, the club’s leading women’s sides, or the thirds, the Goldfinches, comprising the keenest mums. Most importantly they are all having a whale of a time.
True success story
Brown admits her story has surprised herself – and her friends. “I’m sorry to say I did nothing but walk to and from the car,” she says of her formerly sedentary lifestyle.
“Every couple of years I’d join a gym and go once or twice. I’d just be there, bored, thinking about all the other things I should have been doing. But cricket? It’s such fun, and the others are all such a good laugh.”
Begg’s own involvement with the game was sparked when a Finchley CC flyer came through the front door at a friend’s house when she was 11. She was then the club’s solitary girl.
Now the mentor herself for the county, she has been bowled over by Brown’s conversion – which has also led to her attending a coach support worker’s course in order to help out with the club’s under-15 girls.
“She’s the example – someone who’d been around the club a long time, watching, standing on the sidelines,” says Begg. “And once you’ve got a group of people doing things, it grows ridiculously quickly. We put out three women’s sides at Finchley last weekend – two 11-a-side and one eight-a-side. That’s a sign something’s going right.”
Fruits of labour
As the profile of the women’s game increases, the work done by Begg is bearing rich fruit.
“As far as I’m concerned, cricket has pretty much changed the life that I live and the person I am in a positive way,” says Begg.
“Being involved gives you so many key skills, so much confidence and the chance to meet brilliant people. If the stuff we put in place creates a culture where people can do that, then it’s always a good thing.”
Brown, for her part, is determined to learn all about the art and craft of bowling next.
“The skill of it ... the speed, the accuracy ... amazing skill,” she enthuses. She had a decent look close up recently when she was called up for the Gunns seconds at short notice to play alongside Callie. Like every parent who has played with their offspring, she vouches for that special feeling.
“I can’t bowl for toffee, but I can catch,” Brown laughs. She did all right with the bat, too – going in at number 10 and making two not out. “Facing proper bowlers,” she says proudly.
Bright future
The future is certainly bright, both for Finchley and beyond. “There’s an increased participation of women in sport in general and cricket in particular, which is bringing more and more girls – especially little ones – into the game,” says Begg.
“There’s an explosion of under-11s across a lot of our cricket clubs.”
Begg and Brown will make sure it continues. “The boys’ teams are asking some of the girls to play with them, now, too,” says Brown.
As the buzz phrase has it, these girls can. And they will. You can be sure of it.
Get involved
For more information on how to set up “mums' cricket” at your club in Middlesex, email pete.jones@middlesexccc.com. To get involved at Finchley CC, email Beth Morgan at finchleygunns@hotmail.com.