Huddersfield student Grace Horner is in the running for a career with a difference.
The 17-year-old has just qualified as a cricket umpire.
And she aims to get the ball rolling this summer with some girls’ and women’s matches.
She hopes then to be in the middle for men’s games in the Huddersfield area.
Grace, who is studying A-levels at Greenhead College, recently achieved her Level 1 qualification as an umpire - one of very few females in the job.
She was presented with her umpire’s certificate by Clare Taylor MBE, one of Huddersfield’s most successful sportswomen and the only woman to have represented England at both football and cricket.
Grace is now one of the youngest qualified cricket umpires in the country.
Her interest in the game was sparked when her dad Phil took her as a six-year-old to Old Trafford to see England play Australia.
She played cricket herself as a junior at Holmfirth and is a member and keen supporter of Yorkshire County Cricket Club where her dad works as a match day announcer.
She plans to begin her umpiring career this summer by starting with girls’ and women’s matches before moving on to local men’s leagues. She would become one of the first women to officiate in either the Drakes Huddersfield League or the Arrow Central League.
Clare Taylor said: “The game of cricket needs more umpires and it is great to see a young woman like Grace with such enthusiasm for the sport becoming an umpire.”
