The 14th century game of stoolball, generally accepted as being the ancestral forerunner to modern day cricket and baseball, has been officially recognised as a sport.
The National Stoolball Association (NSA) have welcomed the decision by the Sports Council, who accepted that the historical game meets the criteria needed to be recognised as a sport in the UK.
Stoolball's origins are believed to date back more than
500 years in England, where it was traditionally played during religious festivals. The sport is still played today by an enthusiastic following of between 3-4,000 players of both sexes at local league level in Hampshire, Kent, Surrey and Sussex.
The NSA have also developed a programme with University College that has so far helped train more than 250 stoolball coaches and they hope this latest decision will give stoolball more prominence across the UK and generate more participants within communities and schools beyond the south east.
NSA chairman John Price said: "We are delighted with our new status which is the result of six years of hard work and lobbying. Stoolball already appears in the national curriculum and we are hoping that our new-found recognition will generate further uptake within schools and the creation of many more clubs across the country."
The sport is played using similar equipment to cricket on a grass pitch with the wickets pitched 16 yards apart. The scoring and rules are similar to those of cricket, however the wickets are one foot square wooden boards on stakes and the willow bat is shaped like a table tennis bat but with a longer and more substantial handle.
A team is made up of 11 players and a match is won by the team scoring the most runs within an agreed number of eight-ball overs.
Lisa O'Keefe, from Sport England, said: "It is a great achievement to be recognised as a sport and we hope this development will raise the profile of stoolball.''
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