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The
last two years has seen Waltham St Lawrence Cricket Club take
great strides towards becoming a more successful club. In 2007
we invited ECB development officer Mark Roche to visit our club
and give us an honest assessment of what we needed to do to improve.
The overriding message was that without the existence of a youth
coaching setup then the club would not be able to move forward
and would be precluded from any grants and funding on offer.
Hence in 2008 we begun a fledgling youth coaching process driven
by our first ECB qualified coach Gareth Johnson who spent the
winter going on all the courses necessary to achieve a level 2
ECB certification.
Together with the help of Vic Monon and Rupe Patel we managed
to achieve a £500 grant from the Waltham Charities to get
us set up with kit and drummed up interest in the local area.
That summer around 15 colts from the local area attended sessions
run from May to August and the whole process was heraled an enormous
success. However, just as things we progressing we received the
news that Gareth was due to move away from the club to North Wales.
At this time, the whole devlopement could have come to an end
but in stepped Paul Harris and his drive and enthusiasm in 2009
has really carried the work that Gareth started. Last year we
recruited another 25 colts and Tuesday night sessions supported
by Martyn Blake were very busy indeed.
At the end of the 2009 summer Waltham St Lawrence CC Youth Team
played around 6 games against local opposition and managed to
compete very well winning some games. However, most impressive
of all was the fact that over 5 youth players made their senior
debuts.
What next?
Since last summer we now have a colt "Tia Veevers" named
in the County Train on squad for 2010. Also, we are starting youth
winter nets on January 14th. It is expected that the more senior
colts will also be asked to stay for senior nets as we hope that
many of them will be representing the 2nd and Sunday XI teams
during the summer.
Also, during the summer of 2010 we have entered the U13 and U15
into a youth league which we hope will be enormously successful.
Coupled with this the club is also working towards the coveted
CLUBMARK Award accreditation. This will take us to the next level
in our development and will allow us to access further funding
opportunities through the ECB.
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