Festival Cricket, Flicx-Style: Trinity’s MAT Day at Barwick in Elmet

Barwick in Elmet Cricket Club came alive on Wednesday 1st July with the sound of school cricket as Trinity Multi-Academy Trust (MAT) brought its academies together for the Trinity Academy MAT Cricket Festival. The day was built on one simple belief: every young player deserves the experience of the real game.

MAT competition back for a third year

Back for its third year, the festival has become a fixture in the Trinity MAT calendar. It also shows how far cricket at Trinity Academy Leeds has come. What began with a single 2G Flicx Pitch purchased in 2024 has grown into girls’ and boys’ teams across the age groups, a pitch that hosts game after game, and a school-club link with Barwick in Elmet that develops season on season.

Cricket matters to these pupils. Plenty of them don’t stop when the school day ends. They play informally in their own time, and some have found their way to the club itself. Each year, academies from across the trust come together on one club ground to play, compete and enjoy the game with Trinity Academy Bradford taking the trophy home this year.

A proper game for every pupil

The festival is really about one thing: giving young cricketers the experience of the real game. That has always been the goal for Rob Withers. As the PE teacher and driving force behind cricket at the school put it when Trinity first invested in their pitch: “We’re all about elevating things to the next level and giving our students the best opportunities. It gives them that match feel. It’s important to us that when they go out and play, it should be as if they’re playing professional cricket.”

The 2G Flicx Pitch is what makes that possible. The festival ran across three pitches: the club’s own artificial square, the 2G Flicx Pitch that Trinity Academy Leeds brought along, and a demo pitch loaned by Flicx for the day. Together they turned a single ground into a three-pitch venue, so games could run side by side and everyone got to play.

Trinity’s own pitch in Leeds is used far beyond days like this. Back at school it hosts game after game throughout the season, rolled out on their rubbercrumb football pitch and means they can play cricket in all weathers. For many of the pupils, walking out to bat at a proper club is a real milestone: a clubhouse, a boundary, and a traditional cricket venue. Trinity Academy Leeds serves Burmantofts and Richmond Hill in East Leeds, one of the most deprived wards in the city, and there is a strong love of cricket in that community. A day like this turns that into opportunity, and it reaches everyone: girls and boys, across the age groups to inspire and reward with Young Leaders helping the day run smoothly.

Strengthening the school-club link

None of it happens without the relationship between school and club. Barwick in Elmet CC, and club secretary Raymond Bull, opened their doors to make the festival possible. It continues a partnership Rob has been full of praise for: “They’ve been really great to us and said we could use their facilities for free to play some fixtures. The idea was that as our students developed, some would go and play cricket at the club, and that’s already happening.”

That is the point. The pathway from school cricket into club cricket isn’t a hope for the future, some pupils are already crossing it. Hosting the festival at the club only serves to raise this possibility for more pupils.
A blueprint for state-school cricket

The narrative around state-school cricket is too often a gloomy one. Trinity is writing a different story, and a repeatable one: invest in a surface that removes the barriers, build a genuine partnership with a local club, and create events that bring everyone together. Rob’s ambition has always been for Trinity Academy Leeds to be “the state school for cricket in Leeds”, and a festival like this is exactly how that ambition becomes a template other schools nationwide can borrow, with school, club and partners all pulling the same way to offer a great competition.

Get your school started

The festival shows that inspiring cricket experiences aren’t reserved for schools with manicured squares and big budgets. With the right surface and the right partnership, any school can develop a love for cricket.
To find out how a 2G Flicx Pitch could grow cricket at your school or club, email Kate at kate@flicx.com or call the Flicx team on 01295 816765. You can also download the latest 2G Flicx Pitch brochure at flicx.com.