Tredders’ Coaching Blog – 2nd November

At the start of this winter, having not been involved in any tours like the last couple of off seasons I decided I would do a fair bit of coaching.

Half term, as most of you all know was last week and the club were running camps in the Academy building over the week for varying age groups which I was delighted to help out with. Phil Relf was organising the coaches and programmes for the camp and like I said when he asked me I was keen to be involved for a couple of days.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were dedicated to 5-11 year olds and was organised in conjunction with Dave Fulton. In this early part of the week the children were split into 2 groups according to age and while one half were coached cricket the other did football. A lot of the skills were the basics, but most seemed to grasp them pretty well and were all attentive and keen to listen and learn. At the end all the children were presented with a certificate, group photograph and goody bag which seemed to go down well.

Thursday and Friday was dedicated to the older children from 11 to 15 and solely cricket, I was involved on the second day and I must say not only the skills, but the cricket knowledge of some of the children as well really impressed me. In the programme Relfy tried to combine the skill and technique side of the game with some more tactical areas such as field placings etc and this seemed to be well enjoyed by all there.

The children over the week I am sure have had some really good input from the coaches who were present and certainly from a cricket point of view having past and present players Dave Fulton, Matt Walker, Martin Saggers, Darren Stevens, Joe Denly and Matt Coles as well as quality coaches like Phil Relf and Ray Willis they would have learnt a lot as well as maybe meeting a favourite player.

By having this number of coaches available to him Phil was able to offer a decent coach to player ratio which enables every person on the camp to get good exposure to the coaching on offer, that along with the facilities inside and out of the Academy I think produced a successful camp where all the children enjoyed themselves and learnt a lot which hopefully will encourage them to return to the club and continue playing cricket for years to come.

I really enjoyed the sessions and I hear there are more planned.

James Tredwell