by Tanya Aldred
Thursday, September 27, 2001

The web is full of hidden treasures, but some are more hidden than others. A dotcom without a vast advertising budget is liable to disappear into the vortex, unless its name contains the words Britney Spears or, in the last two weeks, Nostradamus. The name Worcester Young Cricketers, Girls Section – online does not, then, have surfers trembling in anticipation.

But this site, set up by a 46-year-old art-and-design lecturer, is a gem. In theory it just covers girls' cricket in Worcester – but it is much more than that.

It acts almost like a community noticeboard – but with a worldwide perspective. There are match reports, instructions on how to dress for games ("please wear blue tracksuit bottoms"), and announcements of up-and-coming social events, plus stacks of well-researched links – to fitness, health and equipment sites especially suited to girls. It also carries up-to-date cricket news, both men's and women's, national and international.

The man behind the mouse is Charles Penwarden, who started up the site last Easter. He had become frustrated with the ECB's official women's site, which he found slow and out-of-date, and wanted to encourage all those girls in Worcester, like his daughter Holly, who liked and played cricket but thought that they were alone. Although the site eats into his time at the rate of six or seven hours a week, he has found the whole thing highly addictive. He is already thinking of re-jigging the entire set-up and adding "a few more bells and whistles," in time for next season. The site has attracted about 200 visitors so far, and about 25 other websites have links back to it. Penwarden also has a grand plan to catalogue every women's cricket link in the world.

All this is rather peculiar because Penwarden was brought up in South Wales and so bled up-and-unders not howzats. But after his son and then his daughter became interested in cricket, he was converted. When Helen Pugh, who was in charge of women's cricket in Worcester, moved jobs at the end of 1998, she passed him a list of the 16 girls in the area who had shown an interest. He sat back and, "in my naivety expected the cricket board to do something." But they didn't, so he did - becoming the administrator for Worcester girls cricket - which now has 140 members and counting and a website to relish.

For once, the incompetence of the ECB should be celebrated.

Tanya Aldred is assistant editor of Wisden.com

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