Johnners Trust
Dear Friends and Supports
Hello everyone,
After thirty hugely successful years, we closed the doors on the Johnners Trust on 30 September 2025. This was part of a planned closure, which we communicated to all of our members and supporters over the past year. My fellow Trustees and I, along with Brian Johnston's family, are extremely proud of all that we achieved during the lifetime of the Johnners Trust, awarding cricket scholarships and grants worth more than £1million. It was great to celebrate those achievements with Aggers and so many of our friends and supporters at the final Johnners Dinner in the Long Room at Lord's in November 2024.
The £100,000 of funds that remained in our accounts after our closure have been transferred to our partner charity, Lord's Taverners, to put in place a dedicated VI Cricket Programme for young people living with visual impairments from 2026 onwards. These funds will be matched by the Taverners as well as other organisations to ensure many young visually impaired or blind people can participate in and enjoy cricket for many years to come. We felt that this was the most appropriate legacy of the Johnners Trust following our closure. My fellow trustees and I have also agreed that any future funds from continued donations, including legacies that would have been given to the Johnners Trust, will be redirected to the Lord's Taverners, where it will be restricted to further fund this exciting new VI Cricket Programme in memory of Johnners.
That leaves me to finish by saying, a big Thank You to everyone who supported, played a role, and made the Johnners Trust the successful charity that it was for three decades.
Many kind regards,
Barry Johnston,
Chair of the Johnners Trust and on behalf of the Johnston family.
About Us
The Trust awarded grants, known as Johnners Scholarships, to talented youth cricketers in county or regional age group pathways in England and Wales who needed help to meet the costs and demands of travelling to training or buying the necessary kit needed to fulfil their potential at county and regional level and upwards.
The Trust also awarded grants to Blind Cricket England and Wales to support Visually Impaired cricket.
Awards were funded by :
- Regular or one-off donations from supporters of The Johnners Trust
- Funds raised at our annual fundraising event, The Johnners Trust Dinner, usually held at Lord’s each autumn
The Johnners Trust was formed in 1995 in memory of the late BBC Test Match Special commentator Brian “Johnners” Johnston. It was founded by Brian’s widow Pauline Johnston, and was originally known as The Brian Johnston Memorial Trust. Since 1999 the Trust has been administered by the Lord’s Taverners.
Notable former Johnners Scholars who have gone on to achieve international careers include Ben Foakes, Heather Knight, Tymal Mills, Ebony Rainford-Brent, Adil Rashid and Anya Shrubsole.
How We Helped - In Their Own Words
Ebony Rainford-Brent (1998, 1999, 2001)
I received back to back Johnners Trust scholarships when I was 14 and 15, and they were equipment grants specifically. I was in the Surrey pathway and was able to us the money to get fully kitted out. Previously, I’d been using a 2nd hand bat from Brixton market which wasn’t even the right size for me. For my mum, it would have been too much to invest in cricket to pay for kit at that stage, but without the gear, when you’re at that age, you can’t really progress. At training, I remember a lot of people used to bring their own balls to practise. So just to have my own balls in my bag was a big deal.
Tymal Mills (2011)
I was on the academy at Essex, so 17, 18 years old, when I received my grant. I was living in Suffolk so it was a good hour and a half to two hours journey to Chelmsford, and I had to take public transport to get there. The Academy Director at Essex applied on my behalf for a Johnners Scholarship to help with my transportation fees for bus and train travel. Public transport can be expensive, and when you’re travelling two or three times a week, those bills add up. So it was a massive help when I was young and trying to put the effort in to make my way through into the professional game, and I’m sure it played a big part in getting me where I am today.
Cricket isn’t always the most accessible sport, and in my instance, travel was potentially an obstacle. I didn’t grow up with a lot of money, I grew up in a single parent household and those costs of getting the train and buses to training twice a week really added up. Without help, I don’t know if I would have been able to afford to have done it for a couple of years. The Scholarship removed an obstacle that could have potentially stopped me playing cricket otherwise.
Notable Johnners Scholars
Ebony Rainford-Brent (1998, 1999, 2001)
Jenny Gunn (2002, 2003)
Adil Rashid (2003)
Anya Shrubsole (2005, 2006, 2007)
Heather Knight (2007)
Ben Foakes (2009)
Reece Topley (2010, 2011)
Tymal Mills (2011)
Our Trustees
Jonathan Rice - Writer on cricket history, and former Chair of the Lord’s Taverners
Barry Johnston - Book editor and audiobook producer, and son of Brian Johnston
Alison Mitchell - International sport broadcaster, and Test Match Special commentator
The Lord’s Taverners - Corporate Trustee
More details on The Johnners Trust can be found on the Charity Commission website here
Lord’s Taverners and The Johnners Trust
The Johnners Trust is administered by the Lord’s Taverners as its Corporate Trustee. The Lord’s Taverners assists The Johnners Trust with its activities in order to achieve its aims.
Contact Us
The Johnners Trust
C/O Lord’s Taverners
Fivefields, 8-10 Grosvenor Gardens, London SW1W 0DH
Telephone: 020 7025 0000
About Johnners
Brian Johnston was known as ‘Johnners’ to millions of cricket fans around the world. For nearly fifty years he was the voice of cricket on BBC television and radio. When Brian died in 1994 at the age of eighty-one, the Daily Telegraph described him as ‘the greatest natural broadcaster of them all’ and the Prime Minister, John Major, said, ‘Summers will never be the same.’
Read more here