New Year honour for Warburton

Date released: 7 January 2009

Warburton: Will visit Buckingham Palace to collect his honour Dr. Peter Warburton, one of the key architects of the Durham University cricket academy has been recognised in the New Years Honours list with an OBE.

Dr. Warburton, the University’s Director of Sport, will receive his award at Buckingham Palace for services to Higher Education and to Sport in the next six months.

Dr. Warburton, who studied at Durham in the 1970s, was appointed to the role of Director of Sport in 1995. His first appointment was ex-England opener Graeme Fowler as Senior Cricket Coach.

Durham alumnus: England & Middlesex's Andrew Strauss Together they set up the academy in 1996 and it has gone on to help develop players of the calibre of England internationals Andrew Strauss, James Foster and Caroline Atkins.

In 2005 MCC took over the running of the University Centres of Cricketing Excellence (UCCE) and since then has been working closely with coaches at Oxford, Cambridge, Loughborough, Cardiff, Leeds/Bradford, as well as Durham, to give gifted cricketers top quality training with the security of a degree.

Benefits of university cricket

Dr. Warburton said: "Cricket was the first sport to work closely with universities and the fact other sports followed its lead proves it’s the right direction to take.

"Universities have to remain core bodies in the sport - turning back will be a mistake - because there will always be young, gifted athletes who want to play county and international cricket but who also want a degree for when their careers are over."

"Graeme Fowler was Durham’s first ever full-time coach in any sport, and he has been instrumental in making the UCCE a great success.

"The quality of young cricketers we are recruiting is outstanding and will only improve due to a scholarship scheme we have recently established.

"There’s no doubt that county academies have improved but few counties have the winter training programme that our cricketers receive."

Durham also works alongside fellow north-east universities, Newcastle, Northumbria, Sunderland and Teesside, to provide sports coaching, facilities and festivals for the local community, especially disadvantaged children.

Stephenson: Passionate about university cricket John Stephenson, MCC’s Head of Cricket as well as a Durham alumnus said: "MCC sends its warmest congratulations to Peter and is delighted his work to improve sports provision at the elite university level down to the grassroots community level has been recognised.

"I am passionate about the benefits of university cricket; not only does a degree provide some sort of security but the university experience helps produce well-rounded men, often of captaincy material."

In 2009 the six MCC Universities will compete against each other and counties and a combined MCC Universities team will compete in the 2nd XI County Championship.