CLUB IN FOCUS - Birmingham Unicorns Cricket Club

In the lead up the 2021 season we want to focus on the hard work and preparation that has gone on at clubs around the County. We will get an insight from a leading light at a number of clubs as to how plans for the season have gone and what cricket is on offer at their clubs and how they have dealt with challenges.

I grew up in Australia so it is pretty hard to avoid cricket! I started following cricket when great West Indies team toured Australia in 1988. When Australia toured England and won the Ashes in 1989 I was hooked. Geoff Marsh was my hero, I wanted to be an opening batsman. I’ve reached that goal, some 30 years later!

There has been the usual maintenance and works around the ground where conditions have allowed, but unfortunately, our winter nets had to be cancelled due to lockdown. But the ground and the clubhouse are looking great as always so we are ready to get going!

I left Australia in 2000 after coming out with the intention of travelling around the UK for six or twelve months. I needed a break from life in Adelaide and this seemed like a good way to do it! I didn’t play cricket here until I joined Warwick Universities staff team. I enjoyed my time playing for them but when I left the university I wanted to find a club closer to home and that’s when I moved to Weoley Hill. I came out, as the only gay and only Australian at the club after a couple of years. Cricket has been more enjoyable since then and it has been good to play with supportive teammates and make some runs!

During the first covid lockdown I missed cricket a lot. I also knew that for members of the LGBTQ+ community it was a tough time, not being able to socialise or play sports. I started thinking that there must be other LGBTQ+ people who play or want to play cricket in a supportive environment and perhaps we needed to set one up in Birmingham. I tested the idea out with a friend and Birmingham LGBT, a charity I have been involved with previously, and it seemed like it was worth finding out what demand was out there, so I did and the rest, as they say, is history.

The response has been really positive both from within the LGBTQ+ community as well as the wider cricketing community. There are already a core group of people involved, helping to make things happen, which is brilliant. As the club becomes established I hope more people come down and try the sport out.

I’m lucky that I have some experience gained from being part of Weoley Hill’s committee as well as other charities and sports clubs in the past so I had a fairly good grasp of the basics. This helped to get the ball rolling. New Unicorns members have helped out a lot as well. We had the usual challenges like sorting out a ground to play at and finding some opponents but they ended up being resolved fairly quickly. It would be great to train but obviously, that can’t happen at the moment so we continue to meet via Zoom and hope we can play one day. There is lots still to do but as a team, we are all getting stuck in which is great.

The biggest challenge for us, like many clubs, is securing the money needed to run the club. If anyone wants to get involved as a sponsor we would love to hear from you. We are running the club on a shoestring and have secured some funding but cricket equipment and costs add up fast! In addition, we will release membership options before the season and it would be great to have more members too so keep an eye on our social media.

We can’t wait to play the cricket board, I think we are all slightly terrified, to be honest! It should be fun but it will only be our second game together. We have eight fixtures in the diary. We wanted to start small and make sure we could field a team in our first year. If things go well we may arrange one or two more but to have eight in our first year, already confirmed, feels like a big step forward. Our inaugural match is against Graces Cricket Club, the first LGBT team in the world, we are really excited to be able to host them in May.

Thanks to Weoley Hill Cricket Club we will play our home games at The Oval in Selly Oak. It is a new ground and has great facilities. Training will be at Weoley Hill’s main ground, Valley Parkway. You can find out more about these locations on our website.

This year we want to field a team for all eight fixtures and enjoy our cricket. Hopefully, win one or two games as well. We would welcome more members too, it is still a small group so if anyone is interested in trying cricket out then do get in touch. Longer-term I’d love the Unicorns to enter the Warwickshire or Arden Cricket Leagues and compete each weekend. I’d also love players to use the club as a conduit to higher levels of cricket so that more and more LGBTQ+ cricketers get a chance to play and it increases overall participation.

Am I allowed to name four? Thanks to Jack, James, Jay and Hattie for all the work they have done and encouragement along the way as well. Without them, we wouldn’t have made as much progress as we now have. Thanks also to everyone else who has attended meetings or shown an interest, it has been so encouraging to see.