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Womens' and Girls' cricket in Germany
Wraye Wenigmann Introduction The first months of the year are generally relaxed in cricketing terms, the occasional indoor tournament, guilt twinges over broken New Year resolutions and a slow return to training to remove those Christmas/Diwali/Eid pounds. 2006 so far has been anything but relaxed for us! January January found the country gripped in a deep freeze. Youth Officer, Philipp Bächstädt and Pat Legge from the British Military renewed their contact with the Grevenbroich school for further indoor cricket coaching but deep snow throughout the region led to extremely poor attendance. A further action with the school is planned for the summer. Much of the country was brought to standstill due to bad weather for most of this month. In spite of vicious winter conditions, 11 teams from Rhineland and North Germany met for the Mega Challenge Cup Indoor Tournament in Dortmund. Although no ladies team participated in the Cup, one historic breakthrough was made. The scorer was paid! Wraye also received a scorer’s trophy for her solo 12-hour tour-de-force and a trophy for achievements in cricket from Dortmund and the Cup sponsors. A hat-trick!
In February, we turned out for two youth events in schools in the Rhineland, the Wechsloy junior school and the junior school in Rösrath.
The cricket group at Rösrath has become the jewel of this quarter thanks to the unstinting efforts of one teacher, Tim Rice, to bring his beloved sport to his German pupils. This group has now evolved into a permanent Youth Cricket Club, with regular training and newsletter from Tim. We are grateful to the British Military who donated a Kwik-Cricket set to the school. Two newspaper articles have also brought in 3 more children to the group. We are keeping in regular contact with Tim to ensure that the boys and girls receive all the support they need.
At the end of this month, we were informed of the ECC and ICC Development Awards and as the news spread throughout the country, there was much rejoicing. Sven Leistikow of Viktoria Berlin 89 reported that the girls were literally jumping for joy at training. There has been an increase in interest in Women’s cricket and our male colleagues are looking at us with a little bit more respect. The Berlin girls are maintaining their winter training programme, which also includes football with the boys. The team has attracted 2 new players. Berlin are establishing a Youth and Girls League for 2006 so the young teams can gain positive match experience. During this period, we established contact with Ian Moss of Gloucestershire Girls and Women’s Cricket Association through the kind offices of Richard Holdsworth. Ian and Brian Wheeler of West Yorkshire have been of great help with ideas, exchange of experiences and tips. We are now in the middle of negotiations with Ian for our first international exchange visit. I will be accompanying 6 girls aged 13-16 (four from Berlin, two from Oldenburg) to attend a first-class training course at Clifton College, Bristol at the end of May. The girls have been chosen for this course by their coaches, who believe they have the talent and energy to benefit from such high-level coaching. The girls and their parents are happy to fund this visit themselves, but the DCB will make a contribution towards travelling expenses. A full description will be sent in June with the second quarterly report. We are fully prepared to make a large press event around this exchange visit, and the possibility of girls cricket being reported in the national media is a chance we must not miss. MarchMarch has finally brought a hint of Spring sunshine, a flurry of meetings and a great new development. The DCB website is in the final stages of rebuilding and we will soon be online again. The website will include separate sections for Youth, Women and Girls, and also for Umpires and Scorers as well as all regional Leagues. DCB Board members attended a CMS (Content Management System) training course in snowy Osnabrück. The website is going to be a vital tool for the “cross-pollination” of ideas and information. We hope for example to recruit the older players in retirement to take an interest in officiating matches or even form veterans teams, as has happened in Bonn. It will also help us to try to attract ladies not interested in playing into the officials group, supporting my belief that women and girls should be welcomed into all aspects of the sport. By accident, I managed to find the “English Ex-Pats in Bonn” website. This website will now also carry regular cricketing news, training opportunities, fixtures lists and results as supplied by Phillip and myself. Through an invitation issued on this website, I attended the first Ex-Pats Reception organised by the City of Bonn Town Hall. I was able to make a short presentation on cricket in the region. Two new players from India, and Heather, a scorer originally from Birmingham have registered with local teams as a result of this evening. On 16th March, Philipp, our Youth Officer, was invited to coach a group of boys and girls aged 12-16 at the St. George’s School in Cologne. This school already has it’s own Kwik-Cricket kits! This group of children will now train on a regular basis with a South African coach, Richard Burns. We are also in contact with the St. George’s School in Duisburg and a Youth tournament of mixed teams, including the Rösrath group is planned for the middle of July. Phillip and I will maintain regular contact with these schools and Philipp will give regular coaching classes there. The majority of these children are German. The Regional Sport Council of the DCB met on 19th March in Frankfurt. This gave new Board members the opportunity to meet the Regional League leaders and introduce ourselves and our aims. I was also able to present the news of the ECC and ICC Development Awards in person and outlines ideas for incentive schemes for the recruitment of women and girls throughout the country. The new website will be an important focus for improved communication between the DCB Board and Regions in the 2006 season. The report on Womens cricket was positively received. Moreover, my own Club, the Bonn Cricket Society, and the Northrhine Westfalen Cricket Union, which has an excellent Youth record, will be adopting a more proactive women’s recruitment policy. The region started to look for more female players as far back as 2004, which is the year I joined the club. Conclusion
Philipp and I will continue to work closely together with the schools. It is very pleasing that we now have 3 permanent youth clubs in this area, a couple of new girl players in Berlin and a new scorer. We are very encouraged by this, given the usual apathy so often shown during the winter months. The season starts – weather permitting – on the 3rd Sunday in April 2006. Media contacts, recruitment strategies and finances will be decided and ratified at the DCB Annual General Meeting, which will be held in Berlin on 22nd April 2006.
Wraye Wenigmann |
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February
On the 25th February, the Deutsche Cricket Umpires & Scorers Association held their first winter training in Bonn, led by Patron Bill Frindall. Two ladies, Wraye and Jane Baldwin attended. A third, Bettina Abeysekara, could not take part due to work commitments and was sent a scoring kit by post. The morning session involved a lively discussion on the Laws of cricket and the afternoon session to scoring where Bill took us through the morning of the first Ashes Test from Lords. The small English contingent cheered at the fall of each Aussie wicket! We were unfortunate in our choice of date. It was Bill’s only free weekend, and as we had booked him months in advance, did not realise that it fell in the middle of Carnival week, which is vigorously, passionately and often liquidly celebrated in Rhineland. Fourteen scoring kits were handed out, with the men promising to pass them on to ladies interested in joining our scoring ranks.
The winter months brought little on-field activity, but much consolidation of contacts, formation of concepts – preparing the pitch, one might say. The website is a vital development and will provide the much needed communications forum in a country this size.