Carpark Cricket Launch Pushes Boundaries With YCCC

The Carpark Cricket sensation is set to launch across Yorkshire on Thursday 3rd June at 4.00pm at the home of Yorkshire County Cricket Club, Headingley Carnegie Cricket Ground in Leeds following a successful pilot run in 2009.

The Carpark Cricket (www.carparkcricket.com) craze saw wickets being pitched in car parks across Huddersfield, West Yorkshire and thanks to the support of the big four supermarkets; Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s and Co-op, it’s now being “bowled” out across Yorkshire. The supermarkets offered use of their carpark facilities when the stores were closed on Sunday afternoons as a safe environment for over 250 children to experience the wonderful game.

Yorkshire County Cricket Club will be supporting the initiative as part of their extensive community programme after being introduced to Carpark Cricket through specialist sports agnecy Banana Kick and aims to bring communities together, improve health and well-being and provide new opportunities. The initiative has also benefitted from a great deal of support from the Calderdale Grassroots Community Fund and marketing and creative direction was supplied by Banana Kick. The sports-crazed team of ten were approached and immediately recognised the potential of the simple yet exciting project.

Gary McCall, Director of Banana Kick comments, “Carpark Cricket is the result of Paddock Cricket Club’s excellent insight coupled with a great love of sport and determination to develop cricket at a grass roots level.   We’re hoping hundreds of young people leap off their sofa this summer and swap their games console for a cricket bat and get involved with a fantastic sport.

“At a time when green areas are being swallowed up by developers, Carpark Cricket can be undertaken right in the heart of communities. This could easily go global, there are car parks across the world in every community.”

Hugh Goulbourne, Paddock Cricket Club’s Community Engagement Secretary adds:  “We’re thrilled to be in a position to launch Carpark Cricket across the region.  The project is set to engage children from some of our most disadvantaged and vulnerable communities and start promoting cricket at a grass root level.  Cricket is also one of the only mainstream sports, which is followed cross-community throughout the UK, and we see this project as a means of promoting community cohesion.”