Over 150 school children from East London swapped their classrooms for the historic ground of the Brit Insurance Oval in London, by taking part in the Lloyd’s Cricket Cup and Coaching Day on 25 April.

The annual sports event, sponsored by Brit Insurance was run by Lloyd’s Community Programme with volunteers from the programme and support from Tower Hamlets Education Business Partnership. Pupils, aged ten to 11 years, from six schools in Tower Hamlets took part in coaching sessions and then the cricket tournament.

This year, the pupils had the advantage of being coached prior to the tournament by the Lloyd’s Community Programme volunteers, from the Lloyd’s market companies. Volunteers from two Surrey County Cricket Club sponsors Brit Insurance and Jardine Lloyd Thompson as well as others ran weekly coaching sessions at the schools to prepare the pupils for the event. Volunteers from Denis M Clayton & Co also joined them as umpires at the event.

Surrey player, Laurie Evans was on hand to support the day and present medals to the individual players.

Carne Curgenven, Group Communications Director of Brit Insurance said: “Once again we were thrilled to see so many young people enjoying this rare opportunity to play on this famous cricket ground. We are so pleased to have been able to be part of something that the children so clearly enjoyed and that helped create some very special memories for them.”

Brit Insurance have also actively supported a number of other community programmes in conjunction with Surrey Cricket.

The Group has been sponsoring the Surrey County Cricket Club disability and playground markings programmes since 2005. The disability programme is intended to help Surrey Cricket develop a full County side representing Surrey within four categories: Visually Impaired, Learning Disability, Mixed Physical and Hearing Impaired. The programme covers school coaching, festivals for selection, county training and matches during the summer.

The Playground markings programme is aimed at ensuring a minimum of one Primary school in each of the five Surrey Cricket districts receive new playground cricket markings each year. Community cricket programmes for children with learning or physical disabilities have also been established in seven London boroughs [Croydon, Kingston, Lambeth, Merton, Southwork, Sutton and Wandsworth]. In total each year 47 groups of children from 21 special needs schools received blocks of coaching (primarily in curriculum time) and also participate in cricket festivals at LCCA1 Cricket Centre, Chessington Cricket Club & Dulwich.

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