Museum of Welsh Cricket bags national accolade at Sporting Heritage Awards

The inaugural Sporting Heritage Awards saw the CC4 Museum of Welsh Cricket getting honoured, winning a national award in a ceremony at Leeds City Museum on Friday (April 29).

Interestingly, the Museum of Welsh Cricket is the first fully accredited Museum in the United Kingdom. 

While hundreds of individuals and organisations entered as nominees, only nine of them had to be chosen as the winners. 

Tanya Arnold, a BBC Sports presenter and journalist, and Sporting Heritage Ambassador, Hannah Croft, conferred the awards to the winners. The list includes the CC4 Museum of Welsh Cricket (based at the Glamorgan County Cricket Club), the Yorkshire-based Women in Rugby League project, The National Football Museum, and The National Football Paralympic Heritage Trust and The Silverstone Interactive Museum.

Founder and Director of Leeds-based Sporting Heritage CIC, Dr Justine Rielly, said, "There is so much amazing work being done by people across the UK using the benefits and impact of sport and its history to help communities and individuals grow, learn, and develop, we knew we had to create a way of recognising those that are making a difference. 

The Sporting Heritage Awards are a brilliant celebration of just a snapshot of the work taking place, and we are incredibly proud of all the winners."

Sports Executive Sir Rodney Walker, who was a member of the judging panel that had a mighty task of selecting a mere nine winners from loads of entries, said: "I was delighted to be invited to be one of the judges of the inaugural Sporting Heritage Awards. 

The range of categories indicates the many ways in which individuals contribute to the benefits that sporting heritage brings to society. Selecting a winner in each group was made particularly difficult given the impressive entries received."

Stephen Hedges, a member of the team of volunteers of CC4 Museum of Welsh Cricket, accepted the award on the organisation's behalf. She asserted, "Before the Summer of 2020, the Museum had a limited online presence. We have now produced nearly 70 episodes of the podcast. In addition, we have interviewed the First Minister of Wales, Mark Drakeford, about his love of the game, as well as Lord Peter Hain of Neath about bringing the first-ever touring club side from the South African township of Soweto to Wales in 1995. 

We have chatted to the oldest-living Glamorgan cricketer Ken Lewis (now aged 93) plus countless club cricketers about the histories of their clubs. We have met Australian cricket addicts who spend their time searching for lost grounds, disabled cricketers who have represented Wales in disability cricket, women cricketers experiencing their first taste of the game of cricket as well as Black and Asian cricketers who have brought their passion and performance to the recreational game."

"The podcast has received over 6,000 downloads and has reached an audience in England, Australia, South Africa and further afield. Our Twitter feed and Facebook pages have ensured that our work has been shared with the cricketing family of Wales and beyond. 

We are very proud of the work that we do and are very aware that heritage is much more than just preserving artefacts. Behind every item in our collection is a story, and throughout our great country, we know that there are so many more, as yet, undiscovered stories waiting to be told," Hedges concluded.