Lord's Taverners Welcome Landmark New Report

The Lord’s Taverners today welcomed the Centre for Social Justice’s landmark new report, More than a Game: How sport can transform the lives of disadvantaged young people, published tomorrow.

The Charity has long been involved in using sport, particularly cricket, to engage with and improve the prospects of young people in some of the UK’s most disadvantaged communities.  For example, in January this year The Lord’s Taverners launched a major new UK initiative with partner charity, Cricket for Change, taking a specially designed form of cricket, Street 20, into 15 of Britain’s most troubled urban and rural areas over the next three years. The £1m project is being led by ECB Young Coach of the Year, Adam Hall, who was himself involved in youth gangs in East London until taking part in a Lord’s Taverners urban coaching programme which helped to get him back on the straight and narrow.

This is the first time The Lord’s Taverners has supported the work of an organisation such as the Centre for Social Justice. Commenting on the report, Matthew Patten, Chief Executive of The Lord’s Taverners, said:

“This report highlights the major role sport has to play in helping to mend broken Britain, but realising this will require much greater emphasis on the ‘sport for welfare’ agenda than is currently the case. Our charitable mission is to enhance the prospects of disadvantaged and disabled young people using cricket and other forms of sport and recreation to engage with them and this is an area of public policy that we are increasingly being consulted about.

More than a Game presents a constructive argument for the role of sports like cricket in improving the prospects of disadvantaged young people and proposes a number of important policy recommendations to deliver this.”