THIS summer will see a festival of cricket celebrated across Kirklees and Calderdale with over 100 exhibitions taking place at clubs in the districts.

The exhibitions were the brainchild of Dr Peter Davies, a Lancastrian cricket fan, who is a senior history lecturer at Huddersfield University.

While searching through various libraries, he found there was plenty of history books for local communities but very little sports literature and more specifically books on local sport and sport clubs.

As a cricket lover, Dr Davies took the route to start researching cricket clubs within Kirklees and Calderdale, he applied for a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund and to his surprise was given over £43,000 to help fund his research. Huddersfield University topped up the grants with £7,000 and Dr Davies began his project.

Along with research assistant Rob Light and 13 second-year history students they are producing exhibitions for over 100 cricket clubs within Kirklees and Calderdale.

Most of the exhibitions are already up and running in local libraries, public buildings, pubs and clubs, while Hartshead Moor and Gomersal will launch their exhibitions in August.

Once the exhibitions finish Dr Davies is hoping to write a book on the subject, while he is also looking to interview well-known cricketers from around the district and preserve various audio tapes.

“Many clubs from this area have had very little written about their history. Cricket clubs are an important part of the community and we thought it would be good for every club to have their own exhibition,” Dr Davies said.

“It is unique for this body to give a grant for a sports project and this is the first of its kind to be financed by the Heritage Lottery Fund.”

Each of the 13 students has been assigned three clubs, which they must research and produce an exhibition for as part of their university course.

Rebecca Kelly was assigned Heckmondwike and Carlinghow United, Cleckheaton and Gomersal. She said: “People from the clubs have given me some information, while I have been to the library and looked in old copies of The Reporter to help research their history.

“I have found some fascinating things out, like Heckmondwike and Carlinghow have always been linked to the local church.