The year 2023 is coming to an end on a very positive note, the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) visited our programme during their major two-week tour to Kenya that began on November 3, 2023. The team participated in the Simon Prodger Memorial Cricket Match held at Nairobi Club on November 4, 2023. MCC played against Kenya Kongonis Invitation XI featuring current and past Kenya Internationals as well as current Kongonis players (Kenya Kongonis were crowned 2023 champions of the NPCA Division 1 league).
The event was held in honour of Mr. Simon Prodger, a Kenya Kongonis member and Executive Trustee of the East Africa Character Development Trust [EACDT] and Foundation for Youth Cricket and Education in Kenya Charitable Trust (FYCEK), who tragically passed away in March this year at the young age of 62.
The Simon Prodger Memorial Match was supported by various organizations and institutions including PricewaterhouseCoopers, Movenpick Hotel & Residences, Last Man Stands, Keringet, Peponi School, Braeburn School and Cavina School. Our gratitude goes to the parents and kids from the above institutions who attended the event and trained together with kids from our programme.
The funds raised during the Simon Prodger Memorial Cricket Match were donated to EACDT/FYCEK in support of our work in deprived communities and slums in and around Nairobi promoting Character Development and Life Skills using sport.
On November 7, the MCC team visited Kawangware Primary School where we run the programme. The team spent a great time training and interacting with young boys and girls who had turned up for the November-December holiday camps. They also met a senior teacher at the school as well as youths in our Community Cricket and Character Development Programme. Later that day, MCC played a friendly match against a select team of EACDT beneficiaries and staff at Nairobi Jaffery Sports Club ground.
We are very grateful for The MCC and all partners who made the Simon Prodger Memorial Cricket Match a success. Your financial and moral support contributes to the transformation of the lives of young girls and boys from underprivileged communities.
Simon Prodger, our former Executive Trustee, died very unexpectedly on Saturday 8 April 2023 aged just 63. He was a cricket man through and through. As a player but even more significantly as an administrator and activist serving many cricket-related charities, his contribution to cricket – and through cricket to social and educational good – was nothing less than immense. It was entirely fitting that the MCC has recently honoured Prodge posthumously with a Community Cricket Hero award.
As a player Prodge relished the competition of Saturday league cricket at Harlow CC, at Hoddesdon CC, at Harefield CC and finally at Watford Town CC. Beyond this, he played on Sundays for Stroud Green CC in Haringey (a club represented almost exclusively by West Indians), represented the MCC on 113 occasions at home and abroad, was a regular for the Kenya Kongonis and Stragglers of Asia and, in his later years, also for Bucks Over-50s.
Off the field, he served as a longstanding Secretary and MD of the Club Cricket Conference and National Cricket Conference, as Chair of Watford Town CC, as a trustee of the Club Cricket Charity, as Executive Trustee of the East Africa Character Development Trust and trustee of the Character Through Cricket Charity. In everything Simon undertook, he fought tirelessly to promote the recreational game and community cricket clubs.
Even more significantly, he fought to make cricket a game for everyone. Long before words like “Inclusivity” and “Diversity” became part of our national lexicon, Simon was on the case – ensuring that everyone, regardless of colour, creed, gender background and ability, was included. His role in setting up the National Asian Cricket Council and African Caribbean Cricket Association was phenomenal. He also believed passionately in cricket’s power to achieve remarkable social and educational impact, demonstrated in his role in developing the work of the East Africa Character Development Trust. Through its integrated cricket and Life Skills programme, the charity supports young Kenyan boys and girls living the most challenging of lives in Nairobi’s slum communities and nurtures specific character qualities essential for success in all aspects of our lives. The charity is achieving remarkable things.
The untimely death of this unsung cricketing hero leaves a gaping hole – and not least because there was so much more that Simon was determined to see accomplished for and through cricket.