Little Big Sports - We are Girls in Sport supporter!

Katie Malkinson, founder of Little Big Sports, is passionate about sport and cricket in particular. She is heavily involved in her local cricket club where her son plays and she’s keen for more girls to play the game too, so much so that she is setting up junior girls’ training at the same club.

But sport has been a constant throughout her life – sitting outside the cricket boundary in her youth whilst watching her dad play, listening to Test Match Special (this is a long-running radio show in the UK which airs when the England cricket team are playing – the soundtrack to many a summer), playing hockey and tennis competitively in her teens and finding running in later life. ‘All of these sporting experiences have been hugely positive and shaped my life. The physical and mental benefits are well documented, but sport has given me so much more than that: friendship, exhilaration, a sense of achievement, escapism, joy as well as many fun days and nights out. I really can’t imagine life without it,’ she told Jo last year for Jo’s Guilty Mother blog.

The start of Little Big Sports

It was ten years ago that she founded Little Big Sports after struggling to find sports’ equipment for her then young son and daughter. Much of the equipment was unwieldy and too big for small children, putting them off physical activity rather than encouraging them. As she told Jo:

‘Obsessed by cricket from a young age, my son was bought a cricket bat that he could hardly lift, let alone hit a ball with. Rather than continue to try and play with it he put it down and wandered off to do something unrelated. I couldn’t believe it. It sparked an idea. For sport to become a fun and normal part of a child's life, as well as allowing them to develop their skills, it was obviously important for them to play with equipment that was suited to their age and size rather than kicking a size 5 football which would hurt their foot or playing tennis with a normal tennis ball that bounces over their head!’

She spotted a gap in the market for age-specific home sports’ kit for children, left her career in advertising and established her business, which has proven to be a huge success! Katie and her team sell sports’ equipment designed with children in mind across a multitude of sports including football, rugby, cricket, tennis and hockey with more equipment being added regularly to keep up with sporting trends.

Katie’s children test-drive a lot of the equipment so Katie can observe first-hand the kits’ performance. This means that she is able to answer questions from parents wondering whether it will fit in their garden, how easy it is to assemble and use and, most importantly, whether it’s pitched at the right level for their children’s age and ability.

This year has been busy for Katie. The first lockdown in the UK combined with unseasonal warm weather meant that parents were looking for sports kit for their gardens and cricket bowling machines and nets were being ordered at an unprecedented rate!

Little Big Sports on girls in sport

Katie has supported We are Girls in Sport from the very beginning, when it really was a seed of an idea. As her cricket-for-girls initiative shows, she is keen for more girls to give cricket, or indeed any sport, a go, knowing that healthy habits will become routine to be carried through puberty and into adulthood.

‘I strongly believe that if more girls were encouraged to whole heartedly embrace different types of sport and activity during the primary school years, then more would continue to play during their teenage years. Not only would there be a positive association with sport, it would be embedded in their lives. Crucially the bigger base would mean that they would be surrounded by more like-minded girls as teenagers which would help with engagement and reduce drop off.

So as parents, as well as acting as role models, we should encourage our girls to try all sorts of sporting opportunities from a young age, whilst recognising that girls often need different environments from boys to flourish. … the social aspect for my daughter is important. There was no way she was going to try football in a predominantly male environment, but an all-girls team gave her the opportunity to learn new skills, make new friends and enjoy football in a relaxed and non-competitive way.’

Hear, hear!

We really appreciate Katie as a We are Girls in Sport ally. Thank you, Katie!

Follow Katie on Facebook and Instagram @littlebigsports.

To read Jo’s full interview with Katie, click here.