Yorkshire Family Take National Cricket Award

Yorkshire Family Take National Cricket Award

The Birmingham family with Paul Collingwood.

Cricket-mad family the Birminghams picked up a national award at a glittering event last night, at Manchester’s Test Match ground, Old Trafford.  

The Birminghams, from Wakefield, were presented with the Clydesdale Bank 40 (CB40) Family of the Year award by England Test Batsman, T20 World Cup winning captain and Clydesdale Bank Ambassador, Paul Collingwood.   

The CB40 Family of the Year recognises a cricket family who have made an outstanding contribution to their local club and community.

The family all play an active part in their club, Newton Hill CC in Wakefield, with dad, Lee Birmingham, leading the way.  Following an injury that ended Lee’s playing days, he set up the club’s junior section.  Prompted by his son, Thomas’ interest in playing, Lee has built a thriving junior section with U11s and U13s teams playing in the Leeds and District Junior League. Ensuring that all his juniors get great advice and support, Lee is now also an ECB qualified coach.

But Lee and cricket-mad Thomas are not the only ones making a difference to Newton Hill CC.  Mum, Julie, runs the tuck shop, manages the team admin and runs the junior tea room at every home game.   And, by no means least, is daughter Abigail, who provides the kind of inspirational support every team needs.  Abigail is at every game: home and away, has even trained some weeks despite her having Erbs Palsy, helps run junior training sessions and spends most of her nights in the tearoom helping with refreshments. This is on top of her running the weekly register for training!

In addition to the award, the Birminghams receive £500 for themselves and an ECB Cricket Factory training event for their club, which will take place on 30th October.