Photo Credit: Professional Cricketers’ Association
- Graham Gooch to help fund educational and preventative courses
- Former England skipper to donate £30,000 a year for three years
- Read the article from the latest edition of Beyond the Boundaries
As part of the latest edition of Beyond the Boundaries, former England captain Graham Gooch spoke to the Trust about his ambition to help the next generation of cricketers through education.
You can read the article below and the full digital magazine on the PCA website:
Supporting the Professional Cricketers’ Trust isn’t something that is new to Graham Gooch, the man with 243 England appearances has made sizeable donations over the years and supported the Trust on various fundraising challenges, however his latest act of generosity will help secure preventative and educational courses for future cricketers for years to come.
Having taken part in the Three Peaks Challenge and the Coast to Coast walk for the players’ charity, the 70-year-old knows the importance of supporting the Trust and has pledged £30,000 a year for the next three years from the Graham Gooch Scholarship and the Essex Cricket Foundation which has supported the PCA’s Rookie Camp for the last two years.
“It’s a continuation of my support for the activities of the Trust in terms of the work they do and the support they give to young players and former ones too. The Trust is a great cause for our game, especially for young players and I want to make sure they are supported properly.”
The former Essex skipper with 128 First-Class centuries admits there are lots of challenges for young players trying to break into the professional ranks and its important that they are adequately supported.
“There’s lots of pitfalls for youngsters now in cricket and not just in learning the game but exterior factors that can affect them. I’ve supported Alcohol Awareness and Gambling Prevention courses with Academies and professional teams, it’s important that you make youngsters aware of these things early on so it doesn’t impede their ability to play and enjoy their cricket. They are the future of our game so we have to protect them from the potential downsides.”
Support for professional players, the former PCA President acknowledges, has moved on ten-fold since the days he represented Essex and England and believes it’s about time mental health issues were taken seriously.
“It’s brilliant that the Trust is there to offer support on wide range of subjects, mental health being a very prominent topic these days, when I played these issues were swept under the carpet, so it’s good to see the Trust being very outspoken in this area.
“The Trust is vital for all young male and female players and it’s always there for any professionals that needs it throughout their lives. There’s now a much greater understanding of the pressures that players are under not just in cricket but in general life and people do need that shoulder to lean on and that solid advice and maybe a method of trying to improve yourself or recover from an addiction should that situation arise.”
The enthusiastic Trust supporter has decided to resurrect his hugely popular Graham Gooch Trust Golf Invitational in the Algarve as another way of raising much needed funds for the players’ charity.
“I was approached recently by the Trust to see if I would be interested in running the Golf competition again and I was happy to put my name to it. We’ve got some good teams signed up and ready to go on the trip to Portugal in late October and hopefully it will create some great fundraising opportunities for the Trust as well. I want to make sure that the Trust can continue providing their fantastic provision for a long time to come.”
Read the 34th edition of Beyond the Boundaries here.
