With nominations open for the 2022 Lincolnshire Sport & Physical Activity Awards, we are taking a look back at some of the winners from last year's awards.

Long Sutton Cricket Club, won the Active Club Award in 2021. The club was recognised for coming back stronger than ever following the pandemic and offering countless coaching and playing opportunities for men, women and juniors. The club was also instrumental in a pilot for Girls only All-Stars and Dynamos cricket, and also delivered a Women’s Soft Ball Cricket Festival, a fun-filled day attended by over 50 ladies.

We spoke to Andrew Crisp from Long Sutton Cricket Club about the club and what winning the award meant to them.

• What does winning the award mean to Long Sutton Cricket Club?

Winning the award was a fantastic achievement for such a small club as ours, we have very limited resources at the club, but we make up for that with a fantastic bunch of volunteers, everyone was over the moon when we won, and it has encouraged not only more players to join the club, (juniors & seniors), but more local businesses to get on board with us as well.

• Tell us more about your All-Stars and Dynamos cricket, and the Women’s Soft Ball Cricket Festival?

This season we are delivering our ECB national All-stars program (5-8 year olds) for the 5^th year, with over 20 children taking part last year, all the children sign up through the ECB website, and the all receive a shirt with their name on, ruck sack, bat and ball, and 8 weeks of coaching, which is all related to fun based games. It is our 2^nd year of all girls All-stars. This year we're delighted to have 43 girls signed up to our girls All stars and Dynamos programme!

This is our first year of running Dynamos cricket (9-11 years old), which will hopefully be as successful as All-stars, we ran our 9-11 year olds last season where we had over 25 boys and girls.

The ladies softball festivals this year are our third year of running them, they have been such a success that we are running two festivals this year, they combine cricket (of a fashion), music and alcohol, no idea why its so popular! This year's ladies softball training is again getting good attendance.

• How important is it to you to keep young people, especially girls and young women, engaged in cricket and physical activity?

Keeping young people active is very important, having two children myself I’ve seen how important it is first hand, from making new friends, the social side, and to the mental side of keeping active, at Long Sutton cricket club we are really trying to engage as many girls and women into the game of cricket as possible, we never turn anyone away, keeping active and playing team sports you make friends not just for now but sometimes for life. We were one of the first clubs in the country to deliver girls only All-stars and we're delighted with the attendance for this year's sessions.

• Do you offer any taster sessions?

At our club we offer all new juniors a free taster session, which is a free first session to see if they enjoy it, in some cases the local schools do pay for some pupils with low income to attend the training sessions.

• Where is your award now?

Our award has pride of place at our club behind the bar where everyone can see it, especially the visiting teams.

Find out more about Long Sutton Cricket Club on their website or facebook page.

Nominations are open until Wednesday 31 August for the Lincolnshire Sport & Physical Activity Awards 2022 - follow the link below to find out more.