When John Fuller moved north from London in 2011 and found himself between jobs, he did not look toward the corporate boardrooms or high-stakes Test arenas for his next professional chapter. Instead, he looked at a landscape boasting nearly 800 cricket clubs across Yorkshire and recognized a glaring blank space in the sporting media ecosystem. Having previously written freelance pieces for publications like Wisden and The Cricketer, Fuller spotted an appetite for cricket coverage with a different texture—one rooted in travel writing, focusing intensely on the people, characters, and rural or urban corners connected to the sport rather than merely chronicling the scorecards.
Fifteen years later, that passion project has cemented itself as the definitive voice of grassroots cricket in the region. Celebrating its milestone anniversary this July 2026, Cricket Yorkshire has evolved from a risk-laden digital startup into a full-time enterprise. Reflecting on the early days, Fuller noted, It was certainly a bit of a risk at the time, but I had a huge love of the game and a desire to turn a sporting passion into a career.
The mechanics of how Cricket Yorkshire sustained itself over a decade and a half point to a symbiotic commercial model. Rather than relying solely on traditional ad-banners or paywalls, businesses wanting to market themselves directly to cricket clubs and their active memberships sign on as Cricket Yorkshire partners. Their services and products circulate via email inboxes, social media channels, and targeted website reviews. Yet, commercial partnerships remain secondary to the lived experience of walking the boundary.
Over the past 15 years, Fuller has visited roughly 300 of the county's 800 clubs. The commercial side is great, but for me it’s all about grassroots cricket and the people who make it happen,
Fuller explained. I love nothing more than turning up at a club, working my way round the boundary over an extended period of time and talking to those enjoying the game.
That boundary-side vantage point introduces him to everyone from groundsfolk and dog-walkers to freshly dismissed batters and parents watching their children take their initial steps into senior cricket.
Those encounters have steadily spilled out from the digital domain into a celebrated series of books. To mark the 15th anniversary milestone, Fuller has just published his fourth grassroots cricket title, Brews on the Boundary. It joins a well-received bookshelf that includes:
- All Wickets Great and Small (2016)
- Last of the Summer Wickets (2019)
- Dales, Bails and Cricket Club Tales (2023)
- Brews on the Boundary (2026)
Beyond the website and books, Cricket Yorkshire’s cultural footprint extends deep into the culinary traditions of the amateur game through the Cricket Yorkshire Teas of the Year Awards, run in partnership with Yorkshire Tea. Now into its fifth year, the competition celebrates the vital interval ritual of tea and spread served between innings in senior matches. Ripon CC secured the inaugural trophy back in 2022 after wowing judges with a two-roast spread laid out on white tablecloths at their Studley Road clubhouse. With this year's nomination window recently extended to July 19, 2026, clubs across the region continue to vie for bragging rights based on sandwich quality, home baking, and presentation.
For a venture that began as a personal pivot during a period of transition, reaching 15 years proves that local sport retains an insatiable appetite for authentic, human-centric storytelling. As Fuller remarked on looking back at his younger self, If you’d told me when I was little that I would spend the largest part of my career visiting local cricket clubs and writing about them, I would have wondered what planet you were from!
Sources
These sources formed the evidence pack for this article. Links open the original publisher; inclusion does not imply endorsement.
- wharfedaleobserver.co.uk original
- thetelegraphandargus.co.uk original
- wisden.com original
- John Fuller original
- bradfordmeansbusiness.com original