Burnley Mum Jo chosen as poster girl for sport

Rounders-playing mum Jo Baldwin has been selected to be the face of a national poster campaign encouraging women to take up sport.
Jo Baldwin has been picked to appear on posters promoting sportJo Baldwin has been picked to appear on posters promoting sport
Jo Baldwin has been picked to appear on posters promoting sport

Breast cancer survivor Jo (43) is on more than 4000 posters around the country and is even featured on the London Underground.

“It doesn’t matter what size you are, how you look or even if you’re good at sport,” said Jo, a development director with Bauer Media.

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“What matters is you’re giving it a go, meeting new friends, getting fitter and, most importantly, having fun.”

Said Jo: “It was great fun to be involved in the photoshoot and it’s such a fantastic campaign that sends out a positive message to women to get up and give sport a go.”

The poster is part of Sport England’s This Girl Can campaign, and her friends in Burnley’s newly-formed Rounders’ League are running a fun #Where’sBalders competition for players to take selfies with the poster to pass on the message on social media.

It is being promoted as the perfect sport for women who have not played much sport since leaving school, however long ago that may have been.

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Jo first played rounders in junior school, at Holy Saviour’s in Nelson, and went on to play at Fisher More High School, Colne.

Her own latest involvement developed in 2013 when a friend noticed that Burnley Council was starting taster sessions.

“There were 18 of us the first week, now the league has 450 players,” said Jo. “We’ve all made new friends and the wonderful thing is that we’ve reacquainted with old ones.”

She has been encouraged along the way by her fitness enthusiast husband Sean, a triathlete and ironman competitor, and daughter Laura (20), a business management student at Manchester Metropolitan University.

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As well as being the captain of the Scruples team, from Barrowford, Jo is also chairman of the newly-formed Burnley Rounders’ Club.

It successfully applied to Sport England for cash to develop the sport in Burnley as well as to recruit and train people to become qualified coaches and umpires.

Jo and her team mates practice on Wednesday evenings at Towneley. There are two women’s summer leagues, running every Monday and Wednesday, and winter indoor leagues at St Peter’s Leisure Centre, Burnley.