Despite battling depression earlier in his career, Huddersfield Cricket League Premiership batting award winner Charlie Roebuck is loving his local cricket and is back at the club where it all began.
Charlie, 30, has had a rollercoaster cricketing career from the highs of playing first class cricket with Yorkshire and Durham to the lows when he was sidelined for two years with a back injury.
The Linthwaite-born cricketer, now back at Broad Oak Cricket Club, said: “Broad Oak is my boyhood club. I started playing there from nine years old. The clubhouse is a second home for me. I love the club.
“I have known a lot of the lads since junior school so we have a really strong bond as a squad. It’s so nice to play with some of your best mates and so Broad Oak is where my love of cricket comes from.
“I played a lot of football before I properly got into cricket as a career. I started concentrating on cricket from 15 years old when I signed for Yorkshire. I played for Yorkshire from 16 to 19 and then went to Durham for one and a half seasons.
“Unfortunately, I then picked up an injury where I had stress fractures in my back and three degenerative discs. That meant I had to have two years out.
“I couldn’t go back to first class cricket and that was gutting as I had been around professional sport since I was 16.”
Charlie soon had to think about another career path and went to Leeds University to study sports and physical activity. He now inspires children with disabilities to play sport as he looks to find opportunities for children to find a career in a sports setting.
“I threw myself into university to get another career,” he said. “I love my job and find it really rewarding.”
Having felt he had let people down by not achieving the things that he wanted to in cricket, Charlie started to suffer with depression. Fortunately, he quickly sought help.
“I suffered from depression and anxiety,” he said. “I have been through some dark times where I thought I was a failure. The injuries didn’t help. I just felt worthless.
“I thought I had let people down and that I hadn’t achieved what I was supposed to. I used the professional cricket association and spoke to some counsellors. I was affecting my relationships with people and thought I need to find a way to combat it.”
After a great second half of the 2021 season, Charlie secured the Premiership batting award for the first time. He missed a large portion of the season due to an ankle injury which he picked up in May after bowling. When he returned he was in brilliant form with the bat.
He went for it in the final few matches and an unbeaten 100 saw him edge out Sarjinder Pal Singh with an average of 61.92 to win the prize.
“It’s great to pick up the award,” he said. “But obviously I wanted the team to do well too. There is a lot of strong competition in the league so it’s great to get this award.”
