The Community Programme is an extremely important part of Surrey County Cricket Club and we are proud of our involvement in the local community.

This page lists all of the community projects that are run at the Brit Oval, from the Prince's Trust to local cricket club Kennington United.

Kennington United Cricket Club

KUCC is one of the only cricket clubs based in the inner city in the UK, and is the ONLY cricket club in Lambeth. It has been running for nearly five years, and the first team have just completed their first season in the Surrey Wey Valley League, playing 14, winning 7, drawing 2 and losing 5.

The club is based on the Kennington Park Extension , and boasts a 4 track square with one artificial strip, two all-weather nets, and we are currently in the planning stage of building a multi-functional pavilion.

The club has three sides, and provides the only route in Lambeth for local people to play cricket at league level. A summer course also runs every year, is open to anyone, and offers free coaching of all levels. During the winter coaching courses are run at the Brixton Rec and again offer free coaching to the community.

To get involved with the club, or if you would like to find out more information about Kennington United CC then send an email to community@surreycricket.com

Prince's Trust

The Prince’s Trust is an extremely important part of the Community Plan for a number of reasons. It is an extremely worthwhile scheme that is well established, and proven to help young people in the Lambeth area. Over three 12 weeks courses a year based within the Brit Oval, 36 unemployed and possibly underprivileged 18-25 year olds will take part in a programme that will rebuild their confidence and give them a base from which to rebuild their lives.

Each 12-week course encompasses work placement schemes (often within Surrey County Cricket Club), introductions to cricket and other sports, general self-motivation exercises and an end of term presentation – the culmination of each person’s experience on the course.

We are currently half way through the first 12-week course of the academic year, and shortly the team will be moving into a new permanent room that we have just spent over £15,000 converting.

Playing for Success

Playing for Success is an after school scheme where primary and secondary school students use the Ben Hollioake Centre for academic, cricket based study, and Lambeth Hall for cricket coaching. It is aimed at students who lack motivation or inspiration at school – something that the setting of The Brit Oval can provide. A pilot scheme was completed in July, with two schools attending, and the ‘06/’07 academic year commenced in October, and has already been filled with a full quota of 24 schools (eight per term) from the Lambeth area attending. That is a total of 480 pupils per year attending a 10-week course at the Oval.
This is a proven programme, supported by both Lambeth and Islington borough councils, and run by a very experienced project manager who has worked for six years on the PFS project at Highbury/Arsenal. The club will continue to support this extremely worthwhile scheme, as is a flagship project that fits in with the club’s sporting heritage, and it provides an inspirational academic and sporting opportunity to hundreds of young people from the Lambeth area.

We are currently halfway through the first term of the academic year with eight schools from the Lambeth area attending the course.

Education Project

The Education Project is a scheme that effectively opens the doors of the Brit Oval to every school in Lambeth by acting as their classroom for the day. A class is taught in the BHC, followed by coaching and a tour of the ground. This will be followed up later in the year by tickets to a match, photos with players etc.

The scheme is due to run from Jan – April, with two pilots being trialled, one model with a single school per day, and another with two schools at once.

Run to its full potential, the scheme could run for 30 weeks, with as many as 10 schools per week, resulting in around 6000 children passing through the gates every year. This represents excellent morning use of the BHC (so it can run in conjunction with PFS), meaning that it’s being used to its full potential. Again, this provides an inspirational insight into cricket/sport for thousands of local school children who may not have had such an opportunity previously.

ECHO Project

Another new and extremely worthwhile project that will reach thousands of young people in Lambeth, the ECHO Project (ECHO stands for Equality, Coaching, Healthy Options) has completed one pilot, and starts the full course in January 2007.

The project is run in conjunction with Fulham Football Club, and will deliver coaching (cricket and football) to primary and secondary schools in Lambeth for the next three years. The scheme is also primed to teach simple healthy living messages (written in conjunction with Lambeth Council) to help tackle important issues that are causing harm to children today – while a child warms up and down before a cricket coaching session they will be educated informally about the benefits of eating 5 portions of fruit/veg per day, for example.

The scheme will reach over 4,300 children per year, and will not only teach them positive, healthy living messages, but will also introduce them to cricket and football and the many positives that team sport can provide.

It will start in the first week of January with a launch on 22nd November to coincide with the Ashes.

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