The Culture County Speaks to David Jackson

Ahead of an exciting season at Durham Cricket, Marketing Director David Jackson kindly spoke to the Culture County about the exciting launch of the new professional women’s team, their continued pursuit to engage with the local community and the upcoming season.

This season sees the exciting launch of Durham’s first professional women’s cricket team, who are set to play their first ever game on 23 April which will hopefully attract more women and girls into the sport. David also discusses Durham Cricket’s aims of making cricket in the county accessible and affordable to all and their hopes of getting more local residents involved. But firstly, we asked David about the upcoming year at Durham Cricket and the events we can look forward too.

Q: What can people look forward to in 2025?

A:  It’s a big year here at Durham Cricket, obviously the cricket is going to be a huge season for us. We've got a new women's team starting and we're going to have men's and women's fixtures throughout the year with the T20 blast starting in June and July with some of those games being double headers, so the men and the women will play on the same day so you will get two games for the price of the one ticket.

Plus, there’s men’s and women's internationals at the venue as well. England men and England women will be both playing here this season which will be fantastic events to come down to. Then there's other events outside of cricket for people who are not particularly cricket fans, we have a drone show coming up and a fireworks evening as well on top of the other events, such as Christmas parties and other things, so it’s a huge year for everyone here.

Q: Durham Cricket have for many years engaged with the local community, could you tell us more about the community engagement plans for 2025 and how can locals help out or get involved?

A: This has been a big part of the programme here at Durham Cricket for the last few years, with the aim of really reaching communities and different elements of the population that we haven't traditionally attracted down to watch cricket here.  We work with a lot of different social economic groups, we outreach to refuge centres and refugee organisations, and we've put a lot of facilities in place over the last few years to really make the venue much more accessible and inclusive for all different communities. The multi faith space was the most recent addition to the ground last season along with the sensory room. We also put in place a Changing Place facilities for those with disability requirements, so we are really making every effort to make the venue as inclusive as possible and as accessible to different communities.

On a separate note, we always have a lot of school’s outreach programmes happening and a lot of local cricket club outreach programmes ongoing, again with the aim to attract people down to get involved in the sport and make it more accessible and more affordable. Because we want everyone to be involved in cricket and everyone to experience sport here in the county.

Q: Recently Durham Cricket announced the launch of Durham’s first professional women’s cricket team, could you explain the impact and potential legacy on the region of having a women’s professional cricket team in Durham.

A: It's brilliant news for the county and for the club, we managed to win the bid to have a T1 professional women's team here for 2025, so they'll start playing this season at the venue. From a sporting and an economic aspect, it's brilliant and for the region, it's going to allow us to attract a lot more women and girls into the sport to play right from a recreational level through to our Academy and then they can aspire to play professional cricket in the county that they come from, which is going to be brilliant. The team is also sponsored by Durham, which is fantastic, as the players embody the passion and ambition of the county

Also, from an economic point of view obviously it brings a lot more games to the venue which will help the county and Chester-le-Street in attracting more crowds down for the different matches throughout the year, as it doubles the number of games we will have here, so all round its brilliant for the region and brilliant for women's sport.

Q: And finally, David, when can we see both teams playing at the seat Unique Riverside?

A: The men start their season on 11 April with the County Championship game against Warwickshire here at the ground so it's a four-day game, and then the women kick their season off on 23 April against Essex and that will be the first ever professional Durham Cricket women's game at the ground. We are hoping for a big crowd to that game so we would love it if everyone could get down to support both teams as we start a big season for the club.

The Culture County has plenty of sporting events to keep you entertained this summer. Discover more sporting events here.