Anna Thorn

About

I live down in the south of Hampshire with my family, my daughter plays cricket and is why I am so heavily involved. I am unable to work due to cancer, so cricket helpfully fills some of my days. I use to be a specialist teacher, but now find my days are filled with score sheets and organising matches for the team or our annual W10 festival, which we love to host. We have a mini schnauzer, who is our own cricket pup, she loves coming to matches and watches intently when our team are on the field. I have just volunteered and been a flag bearer at the Women's World Cup at the Hampshire Bowl, it was an epic experience. I really want to raise the profile of female sports and hope that being an ambassador will help me do that, in the two years since I began my role as coordinator and the team started in 2025, we have gone from 0 players to 20, I want to now build on this with getting younger players to come forward and build a feeder group so we have more players coming through to play in different leagues and experience all the opportunities the are out there. It will take time, but it happens else where so why can't it happen here!

Cricket Background

About six years ago, my daughter, needed a new sport to get into to remain active. Due to some health conditions and being autistic, this wasn't straightforward, but I saw an advert for Dynamo's and I suddenly thought- cricket! A team game you essentially play on your own. We joined up, after a tentative start, she loved it and pretty much have never looked back. My 14, my daughter plays for the W10 team I coordinate, as well as a county female disabled team and she is thriving. So she is the reason I got into cricket, after spending so much at practices and games, I put myself forward at the local club and said 'if there's ever anything you need, just shout' and indeed they did! In 2025, the Hayling Hurricane's were developed in a small island community, where they hadn't really heard of W10 before. In that first year, due to circumstances that overtook us, I ended up being the coordinator, the coach and the team captain- frazzled is how I would describe myself at the end of the first season. This year, 2026, I remained as coordinator, but I have co-captains, a subcommittee and a wealth of players eager to play each match. We continue to build a positive ethos in the team, of 'no sorry's' as one of the captain's so rightly pointed out, we spend so much of our life saying sorry for almost everything, we made cricket an area of life where we don't apologise for bowling wides, for missing a catch or missing a hit with the bat, we turn them in to learning points and just think, we'll try and get them next time. It makes for a much more positive pitch and builds on our friendly welcoming and inclusive nature of a team.

Cricket Details

How I Heard About Maiden

I stumble over Maiden on an internet search for something else, and then I was talking to Howzat magazine and your name came up, then at the training for the world cup, your name up again, and again with her game too cricket, so it all linked together, then I had a meeting with one of your sales team.

Why Maiden?

Following Maiden cropping up in every area of my cricketing world, and after the meeting with one of the sales team learning more about how Maiden was founded, I really liked the reason why Maiden was created. I completed got the reason why the company was made and really liked the ideas behind it. I could see they had thought about the styles and needs of females when they are playing in their designs and also just the ethos struck a cord. So I applied and luckily was successful. If I can make just one person turn their head and think yes to Maiden then that's a good thing I hope.