Meet Barney Morris - aka Batman - who restores and recycles cricket bats
Barney Morris @barneybats runs the cricket department at Wisdom Sports in Haywards Heath. He restores, fixes and recycles cricket bats. We caught up with him and asked him to fix two of our bats.
Transcript
00:00It goes back to when my children started in county so I couldn't afford decent bats for
00:08them so I found a really nice bats to chairman's bat it was beautiful I had a million grains
00:14and it was wonderful and he broke the toe off so basically broke it round there so it
00:19wasn't usable and I thought oh I can scale that down for my son so I took it home scaled
00:23it down for my son and suddenly he had this beautiful bat the right size for him he's
00:28at county as proud as anything it was lovely so that got me into doing bats and then lots
00:32of dads asked me can you do my bat for my son and then people started buying bats online
00:36sending them to me and it was just a hobby I was working up in London and it was a hobby
00:41I got home we'd do it in the garage and it was great fun and then I heard Nick Wisdom
00:46who was an absolute legend around here owned Wisdom of Sports wherever we're at now and
00:50he was retiring he sold the business and he was doing the bats still three years after
00:54but he was moving away and I heard that he was leaving and I got talking with him and
00:58we got together and he really pushed me to come and start doing this and I jumped at
01:04the chance it's ten minutes from home I've got four young children and I just love recycling
01:08bats getting them back to what they are you know bats are so expensive now you can fix
01:13them from 20 to 40 quid or you can buy a new one for you know the sort of entry grade now
01:20is 200 quid and then they go up so more and more people are coming to me just wanting
01:25bats fixed the whole time you know just little nooks before they were thrown away got new ones
01:29now they're fixing them and there's rats right and there's hundreds out there in the county
01:33now that are just still going and lasting a bit longer so I love it.
01:37Anything up to 50 bats a week it's absolutely crazy yeah you come in here on a Monday and it's
01:52like accidents and emergency all the games at the weekend people have broken bats something's
01:57gone wrong with them bits come off it and they bring them in so yeah it can be up to 50 bats
02:00great and then even in the winter now with all the local schools playing through the winter a
02:06lot of people playing indoor cricket indoor nets it's sort of an all-around business.
02:22It's just everything that can be done the only ones that are really difficult to do are the ones
02:26that the cracks that go that way and they're almost impossible to do but apart from that
02:31most bats can be even if you've got a massive bit come off you can graft with on the glue now
02:36it's the same glue that we use for the handles so it's a bit flexible but brilliant doesn't go
02:42anywhere and they just don't crack again in that same place they'll break again one day but not in
02:46the place where you mend them it's amazing. Who knows I mean they can go out the next ball and
02:59break it somewhere else that's the lottery of bats to a certain extent bats aren't I always
03:05bang on they're not oiled enough they're not looked after well enough so they tend to come
03:08brittle so they don't last as long I think people almost expect bats to last a year now but you get
03:14all the old boys that come in with their bats and they've had them 10 something years 10 12 years
03:18and in perfect condition and then they just look after them they oil them they don't leave them in
03:22the Sun so it's down to you to a certain, a bat can break at any time yeah but it's down to you to
03:27look after them and then they can last for years and years and years. I think because the sports
03:43growing more and more I think more are being sent to India in containers so they can buy bulk lots
03:49and they're buying lots of them so they're getting them you know buy whole containers whereas the
03:53English guys can only sort of buy pallet loads so they're not getting as good as deal but I think
03:59mainly because it's a throwaway they just get used one season get thrown away and it's just a massive
04:04turnover of bats so that's what I love I feel like it's a recycling it's wonderful.
04:09Through Wisdom Sports the shop so you can just come in and bring them in or through Instagram I do
04:24a lot of most of my work comes through Instagram. Barney bats. Barney bats people come in I have
04:30on my bats I have a QR code so people can press on that and come through to me but no most a lot
04:37of my work comes from Instagram and whatsapp yeah.