Yorkshire Cricket Heritage is excited to announce our second year partnering with students to research, develop, discover and curate an exhibition centering around underrepresented and marginalised groups that represent what cricket is in Yorkshire.
We are pleased again to be working with Professor Rob Ellis for a second year, who is our project partner from Manchester Metropolitan University. Prof Ellis is a Professor of Modern British History at Manchester Metropolitan University with research interests in the histories of mental-illness, learning disability and wellbeing. He is a Visiting Research Fellow at Mental Health Museum Wakefield, and KTP Lead at Pennine Heritage.
We have been working with Jamie Rourke, who has put together a piece about himself and his motivations, followed by his findings and reflections on researching the disability game.
Find out more below…
Jamie Rourke
My name is Jamie, and I am a history student at Manchester Metropolitan University. I am a part of a group of curators collaborating with Yorkshire County Cricket Club and we are researching disability within cricket. I chose to get involved in this because we will co-curate an exhibition which will include my research. I always enjoy the discussion of disability in history, especially in correlation with local history. It enables opportunities to tell personal stories, exploring their different backgrounds. Exploring these new perspectives with the wider public can encourage further discussion. One of the exciting aspects of this project is the opportunity to create an exhibition that will display items and inform the public. This will allow for further discussion of accessibility and inclusion within sport, as well as the study of history.
I’m looking forward to learning how disability cricket is played and how people with different disabilities approach it. Disability history is an area that hasn’t received the attention it deserves, and I’m interested how individuals navigated both social and physical challenges and be able to make a lasting impact in the field of cricket over the years. I’m also curious in the communities, how they played and whether it the games they played competitive or even casual. Further insight into how rules and regulation is also an interesting topic when considering how different disabilities may establish different leagues and rules and how rules are adapted to different people’s circumstances.
Throughout this project I’m delighted to be able to develop my skills which will not only enhance my historical research abilities but also my understanding of how history can be used to highlight communities no matter how small. Furthermore, it allows me to refine my skills in archival research, learning to navigate historical documents, records and be able to discuss with the people involved in the game now to hear their story. The collaboration aspect of the project will allow me to develop my teamwork and communication abilities, working alongside other creators and experts in the field. This will also enhance my practical skills in presenting research to an audience in a compelling and accessible way. Overall, I’m looking forward to developing both my technical and creative skills in the field of history while contributing to a more inclusive representation of the past. I look forward to the final project and collaboration with Yorkshire County Cricket Club.
Cricket and disability sport: from wheelchairs to prosthetics
This project aim was to shed light on the history on disability cricket because this is an area of history that is often overlooked. I am very passionate about raising awareness especially for disability history as not only am I disabled but find it an interesting topic within society and plan to pursue a dissertation topic related to disability. The project focused on specifically disability cricket within Yorkshire in association with the Yorkshire Cricket Foundation but also a wider scope to disability and sports in the Northwest of England.
The research process was quite interesting and enjoyable for me personally because I was reading current articles related to disability cricket and finding historic sources of earlier examples of disability and sport. One example that stuck with me was an account from someone with cerebral palsy at school who played cricket in the 1920s while I was reading a book on social history of disabled people. Within it, he states “I was the only disabled child in the school so on the first day he got me into his office. He wasn’t nasty, he just said that just because I was disabled, I wouldn’t be let off anything… If we were playing cricket I could join in a bit.” It was fun finding peoples’ personal stories spread across time and the connections to modern day disability sport. The most common examples I found in my research was sport and disability in relation in soldiers during the First World War. Two pictures I found one from the Imperial War Museum website and the other from British Pathe archive. One that I really enjoyed was one of Injured Australian and British soldiers playing cricket, with the Image I chose showing an injured soldier with a cricket bat as it clearly showed the men playing cricket and having a good time despite their injury’s. The other was soldiers and the Woman’s Army Auxiliary Corp playing cricket in their spare time in 1918 at Etaples in France. This is quite interesting as not only does it show one part of where women worked in the war but also shows women playing sport in quite a casual social event for the time. I also enjoyed exploring the different perspectives within modern disability cricket as there is a varied amount of disabilities therefore the way the sport may be adapted for one’s needs allows for new perspectives and approaches when looking and sports and disabilities especially for inclusivity. Some of the examples is deaf cricket and those with prosthetics limbs but also local community cricket for those with autism, down syndrome, ADHD and more.
For this project I also had the opportunity to interview Sam Goldstone-Brady Sam who has been involved with the National Paralympic Heritage Trust since 2019, when he began a PhD jointly supervised the University of Glasgow and the NPHT. This research explored the social, political and technical history of sporting wheelchairs. Where we talked about disability sport. I enjoyed the interview as we had a discussion on Sam’s academic work on which he researches sporting wheelchairs but also information that he found from his research and work for the Paralympic heritage. We talked about how from his experience their wheelchair-based cricket was but also for other disabilities how rules are adjusted to allow for a fairer opportunity when playing sports with the example given being wheelchair tennis adding an extra bounce rule in comparison to able bodied tennis. We also discussed the upcoming 2028 Paralympics and how he hopes the future not only opens more opportunity for people with disabilities but also representation and people understanding the importance of it but also wider change within society in sport. Overall, I have enjoyed this research project and the findings I’ve researched as it feels rewarding to contribute to a field that is often overlooked. Starting this project I had little to no information of cricket and specifically disability cricket and now understand more in-depth about how disability and sport connect and how in society not only how it is seen but how we can help to further disability sport in wider representation.
