From the classroom to the cricket field

Shakeel Ahmed's love of cricket has rubbed off on a school and cricket club

This article was originally published in the official programme for the 2008 Twenty20 Cup Finals Day at The Rose Bowl

It's like something out of a film - a new can-do teacher comes to an inner-city comprehensive ranked among the most deprived in the country.

He gets the children playing cricket for the first time and soon produces a series of all-conquering teams but also improves the discipline and exam results of the whole school as a result.

And then he turns a derelict local rec into a cricket ground, forming a club that helps to regenerate the local community.

The school is Saltley, in Birmingham; the teacher, Shakeel Ahmed; the club, Small Heath Community CC.

"When I came to the school ten years ago, cricket was dead here," said Shakeel. "There was no equipment. No teams. But the kids were screaming out for cricket. Now we've beaten plenty of public schools and grammar schools – and our exam results are among the best in the area."

Running five school cricket teams - plus 'B' teams where necessary to make sure everyone gets a game - has had great knock-on effects for the school beyond the playing fields.

"We actually find that the top kids in the school are often the ones who've been involved in the cricket," added Shakeel. "Being involved with cricket helps them find discipline in themselves, gives them a good attitude. The teams get very close-knit - they're like families. I like to get the older kids mentoring the young ones, which helps develop them as people as well as players."

Remarkably, Saltley's teams enjoyed a run of success against private and public schools. "We'd go to public schools that had dozens of outdoor nets and pitches, when we were still practising on mats in the gym and playing all our games away because we didn't have our own pitch."

Cricket has thrived at Small Heath Community since Ahmed visions were made reality

Despite the gulf in resources Saltley won the Lord’s Taverners Midlands under-14 tournament, beating top public school Rugby in the final. Later, they would go to the national quarter-finals, only losing out to another public school, Oundle.

After several years running the school teams, Ahmed realised that more was needed.

"When they left school, they just stopped playing," he said. "There were no clubs in the area for them to join. They'd just give up and hang around the streets. There was no natural progression. All our hard work was going nowhere."

It was then that Shakeel resolved to set up the Small Heath Community Cricket Club. Taking a derelict local recreation ground, Ahmed contacted the ECB who have helped him set up a local club. Currently, the club has three senior sides and three junior sides, with coaching four nights a week.

"The ECB gave us advice on everything we needed," said Shakeel. "They helped us do everything properly. I'm not an expert on cricket facilities, but they made sure we got the ground prepared and the pitch and got us two outdoor nets. They made sure we got decent equipment. Without their help, we wouldn't be where we are. Ed McCabe, who's based at Edgbaston, has been absolutely brilliant. He's helped us evolve what we want our club to be, helped us find funding, everything.

"The field was pretty much derelict - it was overgrown, there was no maintenance, there'd be drug addicts hanging around - it was pretty much a no-go area. Early on we had trouble with vandalism, but we've started working with those kids, getting them to help us, making them see that it's their club. We set up five-a-sides for them, get them to come up and run barbecues."

Ahmed had already worked closely with the ECB as he first developed his school teams. His pupils would go to Edgbaston for coaching. Now, as he stepped his project up a gear, the ECB helped Small Heath attract funding from sources including the National Lottery, Barclays Bank's Spaces for Sports and Arts scheme and Birmingham City Council. Most recently, WREN – the government-funded waste and recycling body – has come up with £250,000 to fund a pavilion.

"The pavilion will have a classroom in it and we'll have an eco station outside for local schools, plus an outdoor play area and an outdoor resistance gym," said Shakeel. "We want the club to continue being at the heart of the community. It's not a private club. Since we've had cricket coaching up there every night, the park has become a big community centre anyway, with people coming up to play football or just watch the cricket. It's a real family atmosphere."

At this stage, most of the club's players are still graduates of Saltley's teams and two of Shakeel's proteges are now Warwickshire under-19 players. So inspirational is Shakeel that three county professionals gave up their time for free to come and coach the school teams on a pre-season trip to Dubai.

"We have our own ECB-qualified coaches to run all our teams and this summer we're sending some guys on a groundsman course to make sure we're not reliant on outside help in the future. The funding the ECB helped us get has been great, but we know that our long-term future is about involving the community and making sure we can do things ourselves."