KTP success for Marylebone Cricket Club

To collect, curate and disseminate the narrative heritage of grassroots cricket within the museum, using digital technology through a series of thematically driven projects.

Academics at USW's George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytelling collaborated on a Knowledge Transfer Partnership with Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) which primarily aimed to boost visitor numbers.

Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), ‘Taking the Field’ created a collection of digital media artefacts. Using music, video and photographs, these short oral histories reflected the importance of grassroots cricket to local communities in both the UK and Sri Lanka.

The team encouraged local communities to create innovative digital artefacts (stories). Stories were also collected from local clubs to display alongside the MCC Museum’s existing collection, both online and at Lord’s.

The project enabled local clubs to portray their history and its changing role in the community using their own voices, archives and ideas. By displaying in the MCC Museum, local teams and their communities had a worldwide, prestigious platform to document their history. In return, the Museum expanded its collection and used these artefacts to promote the game.

Taking the Field focused on describing the place of cricket in history and society, covering the effect of migration, decolonisation, changing women’s roles and class on the local cricket clubs and their communities.