Liverpool John Moore’s University has developed a partnership with HerGameToo Cricket as a starting block to help encourage and get more women involved in cricket.
The main aim of the partnership with LJMU is to produce a women’s cricket team for the university.
HerGameToo is a campaign to help tackle sexism and champion women in sports. Their aim is to support, encourage and inspire women to participate in sports whilst continuing to campaign for women and girls to be accepted and respected equally.
Paige Caunce, who is the lead ambassador of HerGameToo Cricket and ambassador for Lancashire County Cricket Club spoke exclusively to MerseySportLive about the new partnership.
Paige said: “Working with universities is a wonderful opportunity to get people into cricket.
“I stopped playing in my high school years, but then at university, I went back so we think it’s a wonderful opportunity to capture people or to recapture their love for cricket.”
The partnership with HerGameToo and LJMU cricket is still in its infancy with taster sessions being organised to encourage women at the university to partake.
“It’s going to be a case of just working on seeing what we can do just to grow the game more generally for women at that university.
“It’s a case of monitoring the situation as each step goes, I think the taster sessions are a fantastic way to start,” said Paige.
🤝 #HerGameToo Cricket are happy to announce our latest university partnership with @LJMUCricket 🤩
University is a time for learning new skills and socialising and what better way to do that than with cricket? We are thrilled that the university is eager to work together 🙌 pic.twitter.com/tj5tsRvxGO
— Her Game Too Cricket (@HGTCricket) March 15, 2023
Paige went on to talk about her own personal experiences that she has faced with sexism in cricket.
Paige spoke about how important it is for women and girls to have their own team rather than just partake alongside men and boys.
“I had to play with the younger boys, that was how they wanted to accommodate me, even though I was older.
“At the time you just kind of took it because you had a place in the side, but I think it’s not a good way to develop.”
Paige also spoke about the struggles she faced and still faces today with cricket still being a male-dominated sport.
“It’s just full of typically older men and walking into that is very intimidating, but then you also get all the stairs and I obviously stood out like a sore thumb.”
MerseySportLive also spoke exclusively to Lucy Ford, co-founder and director of HerGameToo.
Lucy said: “we still feel like we’re raising awareness for the cricket side of things but hopefully this year we can start doing more tangible stuff.
“We’re really hoping to grow not only with universities but grassroots and counties as well.”
Lucy said: “if you can see it, you can be it and I think the thing is with cricket is that there are so many different roles and different avenues that women and girls can go down.”
Liverpool John Moore’s cricket is set to run its taster session for women at the university on Sunday, March 26th 5 pm to 6 pm at the LJMU sports hall.
You can find out more about HerGameToo by visiting their website here
Featured image: HerGameToo logo, free to use</em
