How a Kent cricket club wrote its hot weather policy after a heat exhaustion case at a junior festival

Helen Marsh is junior coordinator at Westwell Green Cricket Club, a village club near Ashford in Kent with 118 junior players aged seven to 15. On Sunday 17 July 2022, the day before the Met Office's first ever red extreme heat warning took effect, the club hosted an eight-team under-11 festival on an outfield with no shade.

Where the club started

Helen, a secondary school science technician, took over the junior section in 2019 when her son joined the under-9s. Juniors train on Wednesday and Friday evenings from late April to early September, and play Sunday festivals and league fixtures. The ground is a classic Kent village field: a pavilion at one end, a hedge along one side and nothing but sun on the other three.

Hot days were handled the way most clubs handle them.

• Whoever was coaching looked at the forecast and decided on the day.
• Messages went out in five age-group WhatsApp groups, each run by a different volunteer.
• Drinks were served between innings. Children brought their own water, or did not.
• The only shade on the outfield was the scorers' table umbrella.

What happened on 17 July?

The festival ran from 10am. By early afternoon it was well into the thirties on the field. Shortly after 1.30pm Ollie, a 10-year-old fielding at fine leg, sat down, said he felt dizzy and was sick. He could not stand.

The club's first aider took him into the pavilion, laid him down with his feet raised and sponged him with cold water while he sipped a sports drink. He was talking normally within about 25 minutes, and his mum took him home. Three other children went home that afternoon with headaches and sickness.

The next nine days were worse for a different reason. Five sessions were cancelled, each by a different coach, in messages sent between 9pm the night before and 50 minutes before start time. One age group trained on the Friday because its WhatsApp group never got the message. Helen counted seven heat-related first aid entries in the club's paper book by the end of August.

"Ollie was fine, and that was luck. What bothered me more was that we had five volunteers making five different calls about the same weather. Nobody was wrong. We just had nothing to agree on."

What Westwell Green set up in Bitir

Helen spent the winter writing a one-page policy, using the NHS guidance on heat exhaustion and heatstroke for the first aid section and the steps in our guide to a hot weather policy for clubs. The juniors moved onto Bitir in March 2023, in time for the new season.

1. Three levels tied to the alert. Helen first wrote the levels against the Met Office forecast, then tied them to the UKHSA heat-health alert for the South East when those alerts launched in June 2023. Yellow means shaded drinks every 20 minutes and no more than six overs in the field at a time. Amber means sessions move to 8.30am or 6pm and matches are shortened. Red means no outdoor cricket. Because the outfield has no natural shade, the club treats itself as one level higher than the alert.
2. One decision-maker, 4pm the day before. Helen sets the level on each session in Bitir, with the under-15s coach as named deputy. She never lowers a level on the morning itself.
3. Shade on the boundary. Four pop-up gazebos, bought for £412 from a quiz night and a summer barbecue, go up at deep square leg and long on for every session on a yellow day or above.
4. One message per age group, from the club rather than five volunteers, with the level, any new time and the kit reminder: named bottle, cap, sun cream on at home.
5. Heat first aid on the player record, visible to coaches, so a child who struggled once gets watched the next hot day.

What changed in the numbers?

Helen compared the 2022 season with the three seasons that followed.

Of the 23 sessions that fell on a yellow or amber alert day in 2025, 14 ran under yellow rules and eight moved to a cooler slot. Attendance at the moved sessions was 171 of 189 expected players. The one cancellation was a Sunday festival in August, where visiting teams could not make an 8.30am start.

The single case since 2022 was an under-13 bowler in June 2024 who felt faint after a long spell. The coach saw it on the second over, he sat out in the gazebo and was back fielding 20 minutes later. He had not brought a bottle, which is now the first question at the gate.

"Parents tell me the 4pm message is the thing they notice. They know by teatime whether it's 6pm or 8.30 tomorrow, and they've stopped asking me on the school run."

What Helen does in Bitir

• Session schedules for each age group, where a moved start time reaches every family in one message.
• A pinned post in the coaches' channel with the three heat levels and the first aid steps.
• Attendance registers that show who actually turned up when a session moves to 8.30am.
• Player profiles holding medical notes and any heat-related first aid, visible to coaches only.
• Dated tasks reminding her to check the alert on hot forecast days, and the under-15s coach when she is away.
• Roles that mark the club's first aiders, so each session lead can see who is on site.

What she would tell another club

• Pick one alert and write down what each colour means for you before summer starts.
• Give the decision to one person, with a deadline the families can plan around.
• Move sessions rather than cancel them whenever a cooler slot exists.
• Put shade where the children stand, not where the adults sit.
• Keep heat first aid on the child's record. The child who struggled last time is the one to watch.

What's next

For the 2026 season the club has added the policy to its risk assessment for club sessions and shared it with the four other clubs in its under-11 festival group, so visiting teams arrive knowing the levels. Helen is also asking the parish council about two trees for the open side of the ground, which she admits is a longer project.

Related reading: hot weather policy for clubs and outdoor sessions, and cancelled sessions and schedule changes.