It’s gonna be a glo-o-orious da-a-aay. For me, you and Thom Yorke, probably. But maybe bit conflicted for our friends at the local cricketmob, who have just put back the first two weeks of the season, twenty-four hours before this prolonged blast of windy sunnystuff kicks in. Hey-ho. Funny old game.
Meanwhile, I’m spending all my money on cars – old, unfortunately, not new. Have somehow (albeit medium-temporarily, I hope) dropped into the Struggling Artist category, having forked-out again to indulge another self-published book. Should know better. Have been shocking at this capitalism lark all my freaking life but few things have suddenly conspired and yeh, am back worrying about buying son a pint or whether or not I should go down the caff for a restorative chat with a human, or a coffee. Makes me sad and makes me angry.
But this self-pity will pass; in part because I absolutely know which things have real value; in part because it won’t be long before a wedge of the see-me-through variety lands. Goddabe within a year. Plus cricket and walking and writing kaleidoscopic cobblers will keep me going. I am grounded and tough and hold top-notch CSE’s in living-on-the-cheap and witless defiance.
Still loving coaching on the national pathway. Great kids and overwhelmingly supportive families; outstanding colleagues to coach with or under. First *proper tingles* starting up, after an enjoyable but occasionally frost-bitten winter of indoor nets, as that first selection of the year launches into the Whatsapposphere. Midweek game may even happen, now that the monsoons have abated. Would be fabulous.
The limbs are currently willing, so it’s feasible that I may even play for three different sides, this year: local club, the mighty Pembs Seniors and maaaybee even one of the Wales Oldies representative sides. (Weird and embarrassing truth is some of this may be contingent upon money, as well as the increasing likelihood of mechanical breakdown – whether this be mine or the motor’s). Travel and socials are a wonder of the sporting realm, of course, but both imply expenditure. It may be hard to find or justify – but don’t tell the lads that.
Senior cricket in particular has been every bit as wonderful and daft and enriching and daft as you could ever imagine. Great blokes; good players; just oldish. Ploughing on, for now, under the delusion that the Gods of Happiness and Reward might trump the Get Real, Donkey cohort: it’s nailed-on that pain or pathway coaching will offer a break at some stage.
I don’t agree with everything that happens around our national junior pathway but I quite like the idea of players/families being able to submit video evidence as a sort of pre-trial gambit. (Dislike the word ‘trial’ but there’s no escaping the need to select, as county pathways sharpen towards excellence. Do I need to note that as someone who spent a decade or so as a Community Coach, I get that *opportunities* of a different sort are every bit as important as what the Candidates are doing?) Wee videos, shot by mum or dad on a phone, really might be a way of widening access (and not missing Real Players!) Believe counties in the Midlands piloted this idea a year or two ago: happy that our lot are accepting submissions of this kind for 13 year-olds and above.
Cricket does have particular issues to do with class/money/access/comfort-in-the-environment. I’m hoping that video can winkle open ways in for individuals who might not otherwise get their moment.
Probably indiscreet to say too much about the groups I’m involved with… but they tend to be junior juniors. So I can be loose and friendly and welcoming: the straight drive ain’t exactly incidental, but Priority Numero Uno is to make this a place these young humans wanna be. Even on a regional pathway. Sure it might be true that (depending on your catchment) a good number of the players coming in are club level, rather than ‘regional players’ but this only increases the imperative to get them confident.
We try to make it a giggle – unashamedly. Then have *friendly words* about shapes or strategies. We know what The Fundamentals are so maybe they get lots of goes at x and y. Lots of goes – feeling; adjusting; finding stuff – quite possibly un-instructed. Until some things are grooved, until there are instincts/movements which may or may not be the same (or as valuable as) understandings. The articulation of things can maybe come after the exercise or practice of things.
This week’s soundbite for coaches appears to be something about ‘making good shapes’: I can live with that. Are you seeing or feeling that shape, Johnnie? Are you, Sara? Does it feel balanced – do you feel like you can do it forever and ever, or hold that pose… and give the bowler a cheesy grin? Good.
Coaches are all different, thank god. It’s not natural for all of us to project Friendly Comedian-dom. I do reckon, though, that mostly, for small earthlings, we need to avoid the dry and the preachy. Preach enthusiasm – or preach with enthusiasm, maybe – but be open about the idea that everything depends. Depends upon whether they’re Jos Buttler. Depends whether they can time things, outrageously. Depends on their body-shapes and levels of fluency at *this stage of their development*. You may be coaching a genius or a clown. Both probably need to have lots of goes to find what works: ask good questions, offer your things to consider. Take care not to make them sound like instructions – they may know better than you!
One of the fellas coaching alongside is a) top and b) a former headteacher. (They’re all top but we two have spoken about modes of learning). We both like the idea of offering a whole lot of responsibility over to the kids, letting them take charge: once they’ve settled; once we’ve done drill z a couple of times, maybe. Junior juniors can sort out a meaningful practice on the theme of (say) attacking in the vee. You can ask them to organise it. They can talk or watch their mates; they can find a way. You can make it explicit that the coaches ‘are stepping out of this for fifteen minutes’ but that they/you are hoping for productive and helpful practice.
Watch for a bit. Review and compliment and ask more questions: ‘what kind of feed can you use? What kind of shot do we think we’re looking at, here? Oh – attacking – yeh, we did say that. Does that mean on the ground or aerial – do we know what aerial means? Both? Ok. So how about you decide whether in the next few minutes you’re going to go BIG, for six, or drill that baybee hard past the bowler for four. But fellas we are attacking, yes?’
We’ve done this. It’s worked. The kids have done minimal faffing abart. Typically they’ve tried hard to make it work as an exercise but maybe struggled to provide helpful feeds. Maybe talk about that: offer reminder about drop feed/bobble feed options. Stress that it’s important to help out your team-mates. They can’t practice this if the feed is two feet down leg. So part of being a player is helping your mates get better, yes? Our experience has been that a) they can make this work and b) it’s probably a very good way to learn.
Included below; the audio from our Beautiful games book launch, at The Mariners, Nolton Haven, Pembs, on Sat 23rd March 2024.
Hosted by my good friend the treble-fabulous Mr Stephen Hedges, it features some daft bloke warbling about sport and the Meaning of Everything – as he does – plus some background noises and a wee bit of ambient pre-amble. Would’ve *really loved* to include the genuinely brilliant and hugely generous #pubchat that immediately followed the talk, but certain individuals shared some personal stuff about family experiences that it just wouldn’t have been right to include. So cut.
We had intended that the aforementioned #pubchat would dig in to and expand upon the Waltonian propositions… and it certainly did that. Some concerns were raised about school experiences in activity needing to ‘mirror real life’ rather than ‘just look to cater for all’. I hear that argument, and respect the need for (for example) competitive sport. I grew up – and I do mean grew up – through competitive sport, where (amongst other things) I learned to value guys in my teams who found little support or encouragement elsewhere, because they were either fully-fledged or aspiring football hooligans. Don’t ask them to spell much, or do their French homework but stick ’em on a sports field and watch the fekkers fly. Suddenly brilliant; suddenly selfless; suddenly valuable. I get how magnificent organised sport can be, for shedloads of reasons including that one.
But only about 20% of schoolkids are getting it: or only about 20% are developing a culture of lifelong activity. Twenty per cent. This means that BIG THINGS ARE IN PLAY. It means that (without sacrificing opportunities for ‘organised sport’) we have to include everyone – get everyone active.
The speech and the book then, have to come over all philosophical. I think there are moral imperatives in play as well as economic arguments: society cannot afford for zillions of people to be physically or mentally un-healthy. We all deserve a lump of happiness and the wider clan needs us to be productive. It’s a no-brainer that activity *nearly always supports* health. Great, uplifting, compelling experiences in Physical Education for young people can be personally transformative, can maybe lift where we’re at, as individuals, on the Happiness Index.
I want all of it – generous and ‘holistic’ approaches to PE, throughout the age-groups, and fabulous recreational sports and/or pathways. Change the thinking and invest in all of it. (Surely we’re sliding somewhere quite dark, if we don’t?)
There are political and philosophical notions we just can’t duck out of. My argument, I suppose, is that we need to prioritise and invest in wellness, not maxxing-out on profits. Because every one of us is valuable.
After the verbals I include a transcript of my speech.
BOOK LAUNCH.
Enough already of this welcome and adoration. It can’t last. For as sure as eggs are eggs… and beans are beans… and brown sauce is better than red, on bangers and bacon, you will desert me. For we are fickle, are we not? We ‘like’ everything but then move on, to the next story – the next poor, unfortunate target for our fleeting attention. I’m a realist, friends. There’ll be a lol-tastic notification coming along any minute – over here; over there – cats on the Twitters; dancers on the twick-twocks – and my moment in the spotlight will be gone.
I blame the Kardashians – I blame the Kardashians for everything – just ask the kids. Pouting. Potholes on the A40. Climate Change. Footballers diving and Raducanu changing coaches every twenty minutes. I blame the Kardashians. Cold toast; hot – fuck me, burning hot – Cornish pasties; V.A.R.; 30p Lee; too many adverts spoiling yer telly. I blame the Kardashians.
Surprisingly however, Beautiful Games is not the work of an embittered old bloke who can’t pout. The closest it gets to Worldly Cynicism is maybe through the introductory quote, from Naomi Klein:
‘Everywhere we look we find “binaries where thinking once existed.”
I kinda like that, because it makes me sound brainy. To be honest I haven’t the faintest idea what she’s onnabout but it seemed a good idea to have something wordy and philosophical in the first few pages. The rest is bollocks about Ford Escorts and beer. And sport.
‘Everywhere we look we find “binaries where thinking once existed”. Wish I’d said that. Instead I said
on P xii “I really want this book to be explainer-lite. Can’t stand the idea that the dots have to be joined/profundities unpicked for a readership that is thereby presumed to be brain-dead: insulting bollocks… (more)… not everything will be revealed”.
I also say “this book, whilst wading through the baggage of a middle-aged white guy, will be anti-bigotry. Believe it or not. Its purpose is to celebrate personal and universal stuff about activity. Not sure that can be done without advocating for those damp essentials love and understanding”.
But what the feck does that mean?!?
Glad you asked. Let me have a thrash at this. The book is in three sections: the first is called ‘Formations’ because it digs into things that may have made me… but which also relate, surely, to all of us? Family; environment; good energies; trauma or tragedy.
So ‘Formations’ is Big Relatable Stories. There’s stuff about ‘cannonballs’ – the heavy, soapy, brown-leather footballs we used to head, as kids, even though they weighed about twelve tons. There’s stuff about travelling to Canada dressed as Elvis Costello, and the hairs in my nostrils freezing as we stepped off the plane into the North American winter – at minus 26. (Fact). Then about playing indoor soccer with mad Italians and some geezer pulling a large hairy knife on my best mate in a nightclub in Thunder Bay. Exactly the kind of thing we’ve all experienced, yes?
Look, there is family, adventure and growth and maaaybee one of the central themes of the book, poisons in the ether – machismo; toughness; the ever-present fraudulence that is ‘masculinity.’ But also the wonder of sport and camaraderie and the craic. So the wild, contradictory kaleidoscope that is life… as a bloke(?)… or (know what?) however we may identify.
It’s no accident that chapter one – Unwise Tendencies – is about the violent homophobia that was everywhere, in our childhoods. I may need to come out as boringly, resolutely straight at this point, but that prejudice (in the North of England, in the 60s/70s) had a massive, conditioning effect on how I was and who I became. I wonder if it might be something of a surprise to many of you to discover *how much* the book has to say about blokeyness and ‘strength’ and pressures around behaviour. Let me read you something on this – true story:
Reading from P4 …”Much of the rich hinterland around this…
and no, I don’t know what that means either”.
I don’t happen to be gay… but I/we who were skinny or medium-brainy or had some facility for French or English Lit were in mortal danger, at school and beyond. I understand this excruciatingly poisonous, mind-boggingly pervasive plane of enlightenment marks the extreme edge of ‘laddishness’ but I think we know it’s still with us – and maybe in places we don’t really care to look. Certainly machismo in sport lies very close to prejudice. Beautiful Games deals with some of this; sympathetically, I hope, but also has a pop, creates some mischief.
On a happier note, the first section of the book does contain plenty in the way of wholesome tribute to Welsh heroes at Solva Athletic Football Club and later at Llanrhian CC. There’s lots of heading (a football) and some speculation about the effect of that. There’s a brief ode to K D Lang. There’s a coupla key chapters about family tragedy because *absolutely* that has made us… and a lot of family pride. This is not just about sport: it’s about formation.
Part Two is called ‘Practice’, meaning the hows and whys of sport. And the brilliance, and the inspirational figures or methods that become your way/my way.
We’re into culture and good practice; the Wonderstuff, whether that be through the All Blacks’ ‘No Dickheads’ policy or Brian Clough’s ‘OH YOO ARE BLOODY ‘OPELESS!!’
Both were godlike and inspirational, in ver-ry different ways; the one a kind of code of honour and way of being that set extraordinary and (dare we say it) civilised standards of behaviour *as well as* producing an 86% win-rate in international rugby over more than a decade. (And this is a very high figure). The other – Brian Clough – was a law unto himself but found a way to motivate his teams through personal magnetism, elite-level pig-headedness and a truly intuitive but profound understanding of a) football and b) people.
At my own daft level I love coaching teams: in fact I really like the word – is that sad? TEEEEEAAMMM! Teams are gangs of mates or soul-sisters who do that walk-through-fire thing or just pat you on the shoulder when you’re bowling like an arse. Teams encourage and build and take you, the individual no-hoper somewhere hilarious and miraculous. And know what? Teams aren’t just for sport… and they aren’t *just about* sport.
Clough was maybe something of a drunk and something of a bully. (I’m neither, honest). But he took two mid-ranking teams – Derby and Forest – to league titles and he and Peter Taylor engineered two European Cup wins. Incredible… and I think fascinating. His players ‘just knew’ he was a genius. They followed him and believed in him. He did ‘just know’. This was about relationships as much as skill.
This may be anorak central but bear with. Clough’s former players talk about his team-talks. (I like team-talks). Apparently on occasion, even before massive games, he would spread a towel on the floor of the changing rooms, and place a football on it. Like some druid ritual. Then he would just say something like “OI. You lot. This is a ball. There’ll be one out there. Go get it… and keep the fucking thing”.
Interestingly – I think –the great All Blacks coaches Sir Graham Henry and Sir Steve Hansen – allegedly got to a point where they barely said anything on matchdays. The players were so prepared, so in charge, so empowered, that there was no hairdryer and no Churchillian rhetoric from the coaches. No need. The players are ready. I’m aware this may be a bit niche, friends. But compare and contrast with Guardiola, Klopp, Tuchel, etc etc – with the zillions of messages going out before and during top-level football matches, now. I think that may be a kind of madness.
In Part Two I write chapters on the All Blacks, Clough, Guardiola, Bazball, the fabulous and universe-changing development of women and girl’s sport. There are also Honourable Mentions for Dutch football/Bobby Charlton/Chloe Kelly/Welsh rugby/the Baabaas and many more. I do make the point that though women and girls sport is better supported than before there is still much work to be done and throughout this book, I promise, I am mindful that competitive, organised sport is not the be-all and end-all, in any event. Beautiful Games moves towards being about Sport Development – that is the provision of activity for all. More on this in a moment.
Some of you will know that I have ECB Accreditation as Written Media and most often use this to follow England and Wales Women cricket: it’s been a real privilege to have been quite close to the powerful surge in that half of the game, for towards a decade. I talk about this in the book – in both books, asitappens.
Locally, Llanrhian Ladies are a spectacular example of the joy and development occurring in cricket. They are absolutely magic and have transformed our cricket club so they are in Beautiful Games – of course they are! Finally, in the section on practice, the book turns to the other great revelation of the current moment, namely Pembrokeshire Seniors cricket.
Reading from P155 ‘Here’s something weird and wonderful...
To p157 …”I am going to be bereft when I can’t bowl”.
Sad but true, I really AM gonna be bereft when I can’t bowl. But onwards, in haste. To the final section, which I’ve called ‘The Case for Sport’.
I have worked as a coach for Cricket Wales – still doing it – and as a peripatetic PE teacher for Sport Pembrokeshire. Ver-ry proud of my colleagues in both organisations. Latterly I also did some work ploughing through a significant bundle of reports on wellbeing/activity/lifestyles for children. I’m no academic but this was ‘my territory’ so Matt at Sport Pembrokeshire let me loose on this to try and draw insights about what good, enlightened provision might look like. Who needs activity most? What’s most effective? What can we justify doing? Inevitably political/philosophical and strategic stuff, in an environment where (criminally, to be frank) budgets are likely to tighten, not loosen up.
I may have gone into this feeling a tad cynical about surveys. As a deliverer of sport you can’t help but think that it’s bloody obvious that activity is so essential and life-affirming and developmentally important in every way we don’t need reports to tell us that! They feel a bit like exercises commissioned by dead-souled office wallahs. Like who doesn’t know that exercise is good and that we have to fund absolutely everything that’s legitimate, to fight the good fight against obesity, poor mental health, the fall into sedentary behaviour and the peer pressure around body-image – for which I blame the Kardashians!
We all know this! And yet, because the more I looked at the surveys – from Pembs County Council/Senedd/the Happen Survey/the Good Childhood Report, from the Children’s Society etc, etc – the more I bought into the idea that they are often very sophisticated and skilful, and they do provide us with good, even valuable information. We just have to act on it.
So I talk about personally taking the Happen Survey into Pembrokeshire Primary Schools and then producing a kind of brainstorming document around good practice (for our Sport Pembs practitioners – Active Young People Officers, by name). About the conclusions we might draw, the options we might take. I try to weed out from the mighty, meaty documents some workable priorities or undeniable truths. I offered them to my colleagues in Sport Development across West Wales, and I offer them to you, in Beautiful Games.
Reading from p 195…
“I wrote two reports…
To end of chapter on p196.
Part Three then, does make the Case for Sport, indeed it campaigns, in a way that I hope still manages to provide some entertainment. You don’t have to be wearing a tracksuit to get this book. You really don’t. Despite being ‘sport-mad’, I can tell you that those of us who coach or teach Physical Education (or sports, or games), now understand that given where we are – deep into a wellbeing crisis, with no sign that authorities get that – we have to get moving. All of us. So PE becomes more about everybody; welcomes Joey who can’t catch and Sara who can’t run in. Welcomes them; offers them something they can do and enjoy – probably with their friends.
You don’t have to be a Sports Development geek to sense the requirement for a wider, broader remit, for Physical Education. We have to get every child comfortable with movement. Find the funding, make the change, acknowledge the crisis and the need for a re-fresh of the offer. Ludicrously, in my view, despite being lumped in to a new Area of Learning with Wellbeing & Mental Health, PE is still not a core subject. Make it a core subject.
Let me finish, dear friends, with a Mad Idea. There is nothing more important than the physical and mental health of our young people. Could we be bold enough, then, generous enough, civilised enough to *actually invest* in what matters? By this I mean – amongst other things – look at and think about the UNICEF National Happiness Index as a meaningful measure of where we’re at. Stick the GDP and the Footsie right up yer arris. Forget this charade about ‘economic growth’. Value that which is valuable: health; wellbeing; the capacity to move and make adventures. Let’s ‘get going’ on that.
I was interviewed about Beautiful Games and the meaning of life and all, by the treble-fabulous Mr Fraser Watson, of the Daily Mirror and (more significantly) Llanrhian CC. It sounded like this.
You Folks In A Hurry go to about 34 minutes in – on the Pure WestSports Show. 11/3/2024.
I, the Community Cricket Coach. Busy to exhausting period. Multiple schools per week, trying to keep the value and the intensity and the positive vibe going for the children.
A quick, true story – as always more about that universal fabness than about any ‘ownership’ by Yours F. Truly. I know sports coaches the world over have experiences like this every day; in fact something about the sheer volume of good delivered in this way feeds into my own flow of whatever it is; makes it possible.
Un-nameable school and pupil. Newish, blandish location. Rain – so indoors. A hall, glossy-floored, with just a wee patch that evidences flattened chips, or the dust-pan-&-brushed ghost thereof. A few ‘Health & Safeties – so (ever the Pro’ 😉) I park red cones around those dodgy perimeters.
Incoming, an assistant, gratefully received; particularly so as as she is sports-trained and it turns out she’s “been here a few months and know the kids”. I was here last year.
I get a perfectly fair warning about a lively group (whom I’d remembered) and a particular individual.
I have a clear memory of at least two children with quite powerful issues, at this school. That’s fine and to be expected – I’m never fearful nor intimidated by that situation. I’m confident that our activity (and yes, my personality, because often that’s what it takes) can get us through.
Today’s Chance to Shine/Cricket Wales session will be about #BrilliantBatting, about getting familiar with the bat: experiencing it in the hand, using it to twiddle and control and spirit different balls to different places. I note to myself that a bat can be a weapon – so best be attentive – but then re-focus on making the lesson sharp and shiny and engaging, so that anyone and everyone will be seduced, in the healthiest of ways, into happy, busy engagement.
As always, I have a broad plan and the session is ‘set out’. As always, my antennae will be up and twitching, pre-empting flattish periods by finessing, recalibrating, changing the challenge. As always I am hoping this will be irresistibly good lols for these children and I will look to encourage each and every one of them.
Ok. Ready to go and I’m alone with my thoughts for a moment. I remember (again) thinking just what the hell is this child going through at home? To make them so, so volatile?
Then children in the corridor, bustling. Deep breath and begin the welcome. From near the back of a friendly but fairly anarchic ‘line-up’ I see ‘this child’ is breaking out towards me. He runs to where I am standing (alone, in the middle of the hall) and throws himself around my waist. He says – fascinatingly clearly and with some emotion – “I’ve been waiting for you to come back!”
The Sports Assistant is kindof beaming through raised eyebrows. Later, I’m choked (now, I’m welling-up!) but in the moment I acknowledged his fabulous greeting before moving on. (We have to take care, with physical contact, yes? I can’t pick the lad up and hug him enthusiastically – or I enter problematic territory if I do).
However the quality of his response was extraordinary – it’s why I’m writing.
I/we get plenty of lovely welcomes, right(?) but this was different-level wonderful. I feel somewhat humbled by it – all that feeling. I am absolutely re-energised by it, but also conscious of the responsibility it projects back onto us coaches…
“Look how much it can mean. Be conscious, always, that it can be that meaningful. Aim that high.”
At the risk of de-mystifying this touchy-feelyness, it seems only right and proper to note that though I had of course remembered this child from my half-dozen visits last year, I was not, frankly, aware how much of an impression our sessions had made. And there’s some learning in that – for me, for all of us. God I’m grateful but he surprised me.
The lesson is great. My long-lost pal is utterly with us, throughout, performing the bat-skills with attention and even patience – mostly. Okaay, he drifts here and there but he’s not disruptive of anyone, or anything. Wow. Sport, eh?
Most of you will know that I’m a Community Coach, for Cricket Wales. This means, amongst other things, that I go into schools – I typically describe myself as “the daft bugger who throws things around, with kids, in schools”.
It’s sometimes challenging but mostly so magbloodynificent I need to ramp the language over the scoreboard to describe it. Today is one of those flowtastically energising days. Sorry.
I’ve been into a Primary School, on our Chance to Shine mission, which is so multi-faceted (in a good way) I’m going to invent some swift bullet-points, to give the sense of covering it all briefly.
Frankly don’t care if this sounds like a salespitch: what happened today was mercifully and definitively beyond mere capitalism, dear friends. Here’s some edited highlights from the err, manifesto.
We Community Coaches, we Chance to Shiners aim to;
offer a load of sporty fun.
Build co-ordination around cricket-based games.
Build confidence through and confidence in movement.
Offer new stuff – skills, ‘drills’, ways in to catching, throwing, striking etc.
Stimulate listening skills, teamwork &/or individual application to challenges: build numeracy (yes I do mean that!) and communication skills – oracy.
Get familiar, or more familiar with a bat, a ball, or different bats, different balls.
Specifically follow, more or less, a curriculum which Chance to Shine has assembled, drawing on masses of expertise and research… and stuff.
In the abstract we aim (I certainly aim) to make kids laugh a bit, whilst charging round the place with purpose. Structured bursting and giggling and launching and swiping and mostly achieving something, which may or may not be measurable but may well be actually rather profound.
Hence my sickening upbeat-ness. Cos we did all that this morning. Two brilliant sessions with children from Year 2 then Year 3. Brilliant? Them – them! – not me. They lit up the place.
In my post-euphoric foolishness, I’m wondering if there might be some merit in describing what we did. So here goes.
Last week with these children, we followed the Chance to Shine model for batting games, via Striking Star and Super Skills Circuit – you can find these here and I do recommend them.
Having done the ‘get familiar with the bats’ thing, it made sense to do something different, today. So out with hoops and spots and balls, for games again developed from that C2S curriculum.
We were inside, in an average-sized school hall. I drew out a Throwing Line, with red cones, then placed three yellow hoops and a spot, about four or five metres out, parallel to the Throwing Line, spaced evenly apart. Three or four metres beyond, two blue hoops and two blue spots, again making a line, across the hall. Finally, the distant targets – four red hoops.
I welcomed the children in, in English and inadequate Welsh, as per. Then, after asking them again how they turned their ears on and warning them in the nicest possible way that the games would change, briefly described (rather than demonstrated) what we would do. We would throw underarm at the yellow targets.
What would we throw? Cricket ball-sized sponge balls and two or three significantly bigger but still unthreatening, lightweight ‘footballs’, plus a softly-spiky pink plastic ball: all of which I said I’d like to see shared around.
The children had a couple of goes before I tried that “Ok people, imagine if I was an alien and I’d just landed on Planet Har’ford; how would you explain how this underarm throw works(?)” routine. “What’s moving?”
I might now be modelling the throw but not saying anything. Instead I ask the ‘coaches’ (kids) to talk me through “pushing my palm, stepping forward, aiming with my hand-that-isn’t-throwing”. It’s a listening event and describing event, for the children; hopefully more than a demonstration.
We move on, as soon as; we want to be throwing, more, further, harder!
I ask how many points we should give ourselves for hitting the nearest (yellow) hoops ”first bounce – on the full?” Somebody confidently shouts “Ten!” Ten it is.
”So how many for the blue?”
(Somebody else). “Thir-teee!”
”And what about the red?!?”
”FIFF-TEEEE!!!”
Suddenly we have a Proper Game. In which “for a bitta fun” we can keep score if we want.
I offer them more choices; they can now throw under or overarm and they can aim at any hoop or spot. (Incidentally, if it felt necessary, I would offer the discussion about whether a blue hoop is worth more or less points than a blue spot – which is smaller. Feels unnecessary, here. Note too, that we haven’t discussed throwing overarm yet; let them launch a few first).
Surprise surprise, everybody lashes it out there in the general direction of the distant red hoops. It’s wonderful, stretchy-wild and energetic. They love it.
Before the next round of throws – just to focus the concentration a tad – I bring in A Rule. “You have to name the colour before you throw”. We go on. It’s still fairly chaotic… but great.
Next up we revisit the scoring. “Which are the easiest targets to hit? Why? So if we really were counting our score, what colour do we think might be the one where we are most likely to get some points? Or… if we are enjoying throwing harder, further (at the red, maybe) what can we do, to give ourselves every chance of hitting?”
It’s gotten tactical. They realise that. There’s that lovely sense of liberation – through the physical act of throwing – and also the whirr of cognition and ‘getting the game’.
”I’m going yellow – no, blue!”
”I’m going red. I’m still going red, because…”
It’s gotten to a point where I think there is some real value in me demonstrating an overarm throw – despite my half-decent grasp of ECBCA initiatives towards Core Principles, as opposed to old-school ‘coaching’. So I offer three suggestions; feet wide apart and in line with the target; ‘pointing’ or aiming with the non-throwing hand; throwing hand waaaaay up and back away from the face.
In my defence, as it were, I do offer this model via a story, with questions.
”Who’s got a dog, friends?
Half the class.
”Okaaay. So have I. Picture the scene, on Newgale (beach). Me and one very waggy dog and a ball. Does my dog want me to do this… (throws with hand at his ear, feebly)… or (collects ball and notably draws elbow and hand high and loooong and back, away from the head) does your dog want you to launch one?” (Launches one, to unsolicited whhooooos and whoooorrs from the kids).
”Your dog wants you to zap it. To enjoy throwing hard and far. Powerfully. Come on, let’s get wide feet, pointy hands and get that ball awaaaay from our faces. Let’s ab-so-lute-ly lash it AT THESE TARGETS!!
Typically I shift one red hoop to the furthest, furthest point and up the ante to 500 points for that one. It’s a blast – slightly wild – but my personal mission to teach the mini-universe to be able to throw, to love throwing has bounded forward… and that’s magic.
I’ve missed some details out but this is the gist of a session that I repeated, this morning. Minimal changes for Years 2 then 3. Biggish groups – 30-odd. I guarantee you that nobody felt inadequate, or left out. The level of engagement was stratospheric.
I finished both sessions with my Moving Target challenge, for a thousand points. It offers a kind of individual moment for everyone; one in which everyone Wins Big.
I walk across in front of the children, holding a hoop up at what feels like a comfortable height for their throws. One by one, they all have to throw through the hoop, as I move. Miraculously (possibly with an occasional strategic twitch from yours truly) everybody nails it! It’s crazily, dizzily, wonderfully satisfying – maybe especially for those who weren’t throwing ‘naturally?’
“A thousand points! What a way to finish!”
About fifty minutes-worth of entertaining, challenging, sometimes mind-bending Chance to Shine/CricketWales fun. With balls. And hoops. In January, in a school hall. Some educational boxes ticked but mainly, mainly a deeply pleasurable experience for all concerned; including me.
Please note that this post is very much a companion piece to the preceding feature – On #firstclasscricketersfirstclassdegrees.
I spent some time with Mark O’Leary – Head Coach at Cardiff MCCU.
It’s not what you might call hard-hitting journalism. In fact it’s not journalism. I like the bloke; we talked.
O’Leary is something of a rising star – ECB Elite Master Level 4 Coach, workshop maestro, deviser of wittily wicked drills – who combines the cricket role with teaching on the Cardiff Met academic staff.
We talk about everything from funding, to honoured alumini, to the future for the scheme. Have a listen.
The sharp-eared may notice mention of £76,000 at the ver-ry end of the discussion. This of course related to Mr O’Leary’s fee.
It’s hard to judge the impact of things, eh? Because we don’t know what people are thinking and in any case surely market research is heavily flawed, or skewed? Questions too obvious, contexts too directed, intelligence too dubious. Figures – even figures – are arbitrary.
Cricket is being measured and moaned about again: it always was and is and maybe the attention is good – or at least potentially good. The Profile is all. The Argument validates Life Itself.
I love that people care so much about cricket – about anything. They dwell on it, or in it, bawling or beaming or nagging away. The mad-wonderful truth could be, can be that cricket is the matrix within which they express their extraordinary brilliance or passion or flair or psychosis. Measure the massiveness of that.
So, I acknowledge figures more than I trust them. I believe in the truth of the madness. And yet.
We Community Coaches, in Wales and elsewhere have been working mainly recently on the huge All Stars Cricket project. I say huge because from the inside it feels big – and yet I’m not aware of as much hoopla around it this year as last. (Has the level of investment in media-stuff dipped? I don’t know).
In 2017 All Stars felt incontrovertibly a once-in-a-lifetime size commitment, a genuine game-changer’ in terms of investment and impact. 2018 feels maybe less extravagantly present but actually I’m clear it’s acting powerfully and it’s not just the figures that bear this out: it’s the experience.
I’m shockingly biased and shockingly pro-cricket but please hear me out; I’m in there, I know something of this. All Stars is a grower, on me, and in terms of its force.
I led the delivery of the (parallel) Chance to Shine cricket curriculum in Pembrokeshire schools in the winter and early spring, and now act as an Activator (meaning I run the All Stars sessions) at a local village club.
Village? Na, on reflection it’s a magical, seemingly movable speck on the rural landscape (for no-one can find it) nestling against a farm, overlooked only by cows and buzzards and crows. It’s idyllic on heartwarming drugs. It’s Llanrhian. Thursday nights the place is wild.
Wales-wide, there are more than 3,200 children signed up to All Stars, this year. (They tell me this is a thousand more than last year). At Llanrhian we have 26, which between you and me, is almost too many.
This signing-up thing is significant in several respects. Children pay £40, for an 8-week, informal course-with-benefits. They get clobber – bat, ball, t-shirt, etc, etc – but they as a family are kindof invited to commit. Commit the money, the time… and then maybe commit to joining in a little, at the sessions.
The design and the marketing raison-d’etre here speaks of gathering families in – ideally ‘new’, non-cricketing families – to a fun-but-guided sporty, family experience. The aspiration is towards not just providing good healthy fun but also the possibility for really rich shared time.
Some parents will instinctively get this; that this rather profound benefit may be there. Others will be too shy or too deep into the i-phone to notice. Fair enough. The All Stars sessions will be frothing over with good energy into which the parents can dip, or contribute, if they so choose.
I have some fantastically bright and busy and yes ‘boisterous’ kids in my group. The quality of listening is mixed, so I’ve already press-ganged in some support. It’s also – two sessions in – feeling part of the process that some parents (maybe surprised at the drift amongst some of their children?) are starting to wander in to games, to join in, in a way that they sense is helpful.
Hope this doesn’t sound like I’m either abrogating my responsibilities as coach, or endangering relationships, here: I remain aware of the issues around both safeguarding and control. It’s just that careful encouragment of positive interactive activity (which turns into family or truly social activity) really might be the icing on this Starry cake. I’m certainly hoping so… and working towards that. Watchfully.
Look, if, despite the cost and investment in time, a thousand more children have been signed up this year in Wales, and if what they tell me is true regarding 71% of All Stars children last year coming from new, uncricketing families, then I think we can put big ticks in the plus column. The data is positive – and there’s plenty more where that came from.
But we need more than that. We need recounted experiences, facts about feelings.
One example. I can tell you, I have seen that many children were, until All Stars or Chance to Shine lessons in schools, relatively or entirely unfamiliar with the feeling of bat in hand. Patently and understandably, this, in my experience, is the case. That’s changing or changed, because All Stars/Chance to Shine interventions have been huge. More children are getting to know the game.
Secondly, the glee factor – remember that? Kids are going ballistic in a wonderfully liberated way, at our All Stars sessions. It’s noisy and daft and over-the-top because the Stars are absolutely loving it. We’re setting them loose more than we’re directing them. I had one lad last week turn up with his broken arm in plaster: Dad said ‘there was no way he was going to miss it!’ Marley grinned and grabbed a ball.
Just this week we (Cricket Wales) Cricket People are trumpeting #4millionNotOut to celebrate that number of children receiving Chance to Shine cricket in some form. A big PR thing has gone off on our patch – da iawn, Milly-May, in Port Talbot! – so we’re full of ourselves, over that one. Doesn’t matter if this figure is less than football or rugby, or more than tennis or netball. Four million cricketing events. Plus the weight of All Stars on top; recently, now, next few weeks, all over – this matters.
The ECB decided that a monster wedge needed to go into junior cricket. Something transformative. A bubble had to be burst, the game had to be shared. Cricket was wonderful but was nearly out of time – or out of its time? Money to Chance to Shine was doubled, to raise the profile in Primary Schools and then something major had to be done to get new families into clubs.
All Stars is no panacea: said before that I know enough folks in cricket admin who fully accept that retention of fourteen/fifteen year-olds and of course the very shape and format of cricket itself are equally acutely important. Of course they are.
But both at the input-of-juniors level and culturally, All Stars is, in it’s gambolling, free-form, radical and hearty-risky way, opening up both the game of cricket and possibilities and understandings for coaching activity itself. This is profound. Slightly crazy, immeasurably good stuff often is, right?
I’m not much of an actor but I have been resting; between performances, or bundles of performances.
Pretentious? Moi? Well, that’s kindof what our sessions in schools are; more-or-less theatrical projectionsor expressions of strategy, policy, faith in our sport. And I have been waiting for the next launch, the next tour of our Community Cricket show to begin, so it’s felt like a rather welcome lay-off as well as a time to gather, before going again.
As I guess there must be for the average thesp, so there’s a weirdly seductive tension around my own downtime. Part of this arises from the fever going on in the background, as a discreet fury of discussion over strategy rises or rages to its conclusions. It feels as threatening as it does exciting. It feels big.
I mean of course the ECB/Chance to Shine/All Stars/Player Pathway stuff that has occupied the lives of most Cricket Development people over the last two years or more. The Seminally (Semenally?) Sexy Questions about how cricket needs to be, to be bubble-burstingly present for the next generation.
Hard to imagine? The sweeptastic revolutions on the pitch being mirrored by off-the-fullest-run-imaginable stylee pow-wows for admin staff and cricket people at all levels?
It’s been happening. It’s been spicy – and probably, I’m guessing still is – but given the preciousness of the raw material and the (honestly!) radical nature of some of the ECB proposals, no surprises that opinions might veer towards the antagonistic.
I’m at arms length from most of this, admittedly, being Coach rather than Development Officer. But I’m close enough to know that massive calls are being or have been made on everything from player pathways to All Stars to Coach Education. Big Stuff around the recreational game. Big Stuff around re-inforcing the rationale and execution of All Stars. Big Investments in change; a) because the belief is change is right and b) because the confident expectation is that there will be money. All this llus arguably Even Bigger Stuff in relation to the professional game, which I will all but ignore, here.
Year 2 All Stars is almost upon us. If you’re not clear what this is or means, here’s a view, or review, of some of the whats and whys.
All Stars Cricket is the ECB headline project for young children, begun this year, enacted through clubs. For 5-8 year-olds, very much aimed at boys and girls, very often via their mums, after shedloads of research showed this was the way to attract new families into the cricket universe.
All Stars is bold and welcoming and new: it represents a break away and forward (arguably – your choice) because Matt Dwyer, the Australian guru/driver/leader-in-possession of The Rationale has a) done this successfully before (in Aus) and b) believes only this level of ambition and dynamism can keep pace with or make sense with the kaleidoscope of change around the pro game. All Stars is defiantly in your face: not just an extraordinary investment but also a considered (and therefore philosophical) commitment to breaking out from the narrow heartland of the status quo towards something simply but strikingly more popular.
I have no doubt that there are one or two key words in that last paragraph that put the beejeeebers up some good cricket folks. But there’s no going back on this. All Stars is populist, yet the powers that be (or enough of them to back it, ultimately) plainly view it as essential to delivering new blood, new impetus. Resources are flowing that way again.
However, Roadshows to support the project and answer questions were delayed: I can’t honestly tell you whether this was due to alarm bells ringing or logistical stuff re kit or accessories or what. I can tell you that in a striking departure for us Community Coaches, our work in schools (as of any minute now) will be aimed primarily at a kind of parallel All Stars course, heavily linked to the general Primary curriculum and that we will be coaching the younger age-groups – Years 1 & 2. This is significant.
In previous years, the objective was more about enthusing 7-11 year-olds for the game and ‘signposting’ them into clubs ready to receive and support a new Under 11 side. The switch of focus to All Stars at 5-8 was initially to gather a new audience earlier, compete earlier with other sports and plant the cricket flag more visibly into school playgrounds: Dwyer (not entirely wisely, in my view) openly talks about ‘winning the battle of the playgrounds’.
All Stars has always been more sophisticated than might appear at first glance – probably as a result of the huge lump of research that preceded it. Year 2 will build on this by being ver-ry savvy in relation to what Dwyer & co. have understood to be the aspirations of the broader curriculum. In other words, the crossovers between mere cricket and all manner of learning skills (over and above the obvious developments in physical literacy) are being strongly emphasised.
Cynics might fear this is driven by box-ticking rather than the joy or brilliance or undeniable value of ‘games’ in itself: it certainly appears to cosy up to contemporary notions of what’s good educationally, as opposed to what makes wonderful and enriching sport. The All Stars proponents – and I am largely though not uncritically in this camp – would say that the project can deliver Big on the physical and the educational side.
You may not believe me when I tell you that I/we Community Coaches probably do need a rest between tours: I think we do. I know I’m pouring most of the bestest, truest, most generous-personal energy I can muster into trying to light up kids (mainly) through cricket-based games. Honestly, at the end – not during, not for me anyway – you do find the battery has run a tad flat.
Right now, then, I’m waiting, before doing some re-training or further training specific to the All Stars delivery. Then I’m on it.
In fact I may start with some work with Secondary School Girls, as we’ve run a really successful Lady Taverners competition here in Pembs, for some years. If logistics allow – and there can be issues around travelling for matches or clashes with other sports – all eight of our Secondary Schools try to enter teams. I try to get round the schools to lead some sessions and encourage, as well as attending the matches themselves.
Always sounds a bit corny when some bloke says something like ‘I really do want to make girls feel like they can and should be playing cricket’ but… that’s the way I feel. Indoor, festival-type cricket can be a great way in.
Two new teams were set up last season in the Pembs Ladies League. Having led pre-2017 season training sessions, I was struck by the proper keenness and quality and pride (actually) amongst the cricketing women. I am really hopeful and optimistic that more girls will step up as the opportunities feel more real – and as the role-models become yet more visible. In all the turmoil and change, the profound development of women and girls’ cricket will surely be a constant; undeniable and undeniably good?
Winter nets. Arriving (as coach) in the dark and damp. Lugging those several bags of clobber from the boot to that ubiquitous over-varnished, unforgiving floor. Casting a glance for stray implements. Breathing and considering. Resolving once more to unmake that whole concept of Winter Nets.
Be honest, most nets are garbage – or if not garbage, then significant under-achievements. Folks just bowl, folks just bat. Of course that can be fine for some finding of grooves but more often – because there’s negligible focus – folks are arseing around. Even good bats swing reckless and wild; because they can; because there’s nothing on it; because ‘it’s nets’.
Your leanest, meanest fastest bowler – him with the peroxide flash – bounces and beams the club sec, for a laugh. Then he takes the innocent description ‘ag-ri-cultural’ to obscene depths when he bullies his way into bat. Things develop more as a response to the crass machismo of the universe than to the subtler promptings of the coach… who may simply not be there.
Let the coach be there. Make the coach be there.
A sports hall is a shiny-blank canvas. Could be the first thing you want think about is leaving it that way. That is, de-furl those unfurled corridors – the nets. Often, they are narrowing what you do, blinding the options. If you do use them, decide What The Point Is.
Questions you might think about include;
how many batsmen per net? In other words, are they running?
what stage of the game we at?
where are the fielders?
do we mark where the fielders are? How?
which bowlers are bowling at which batters. And why?
what are the consequences of a poor shot? Of getting out? Of insultingly obvious lapses in concentration because the batman think it’s just nets.
would a bowling machine be better or worse for your current exercise than a real-live bowler?
are a queue of bowlers waiting whilst one bowls a full over? If so, what are they doing?
do you have video… of anything?
do you have a flipchart for recording… anything? Observations/challenges/personal checklists for batters/bowlers?
is anyone saying anything? Meaning are there discussions on any of the above? Are players engaged with that? If not why not?
who’s watching, from the sidelines? Are there parents or coaches (or both) to whom you, as coach have to grandstand? Are you (as coach) telling the universe everything you know about This Particular Technical-Cricket Thing because Dave Oosit is over there and he’s Level 3?
Friendly aside; I nearly always coach with other coaches in attendance – often watching their kids in action. Some of these people almost certainly think I’m medium clueless or hopeless. I do one or two things to make this an utter non-issue.
1. Concentrate on energising and enthusing and asking good questions of my players.
2. Prepare… enough.
Few of us outside of the professional game have time to prepare properly. But I do prepare enough. I rehearse things, mumble things and make notes. If I know I am going to have to speak to a new group of parents (for example, at the outset of County Development Sessions) then I may well write a few important points or phrases down; because a) first impressions b) I want them to trust me and rate me, less out of ego than the practicalities of simply getting on c) this means I have to think about what I’m doing.
I have notebooks for this stuff. Alongside the tees and the multifarious balls and beanbags and cones and clobber.
When I arrive at Winter Nets (or anywhere else where I’m gonna be leading) I have notebooks to ask myself questions and to prompt the way. Sometimes things change – because Jonny or Sarah needs that, but often the skeleton for the session is there.
In the moments of calm before other folks arrive – because we coaches always arrive first, right? – I unpack my notebook and my thoughts. I look around the space, feel its fitness, readiness, scope. I leave the nets, to start with, and resolve not to capitulate to their charms without setting some real, meaningful points of focus. And then I am ready.
for (somebody like?) Mark Wood to stay fit then take International Test Cricket by storm, or signal it’s ok, for Anderson then Broad to slip into the past
…or, maybe just have competitive equals.
Also for Cummins and Starc to stay fit, bowl incredibly fast, entertain the universe but be tamed by Hameed, Jennings & Rooooot, when *that time comes*.
In a slightly greedy-personal way, I want the whole #AllStarsCricket/#CricketUnleashed thing to really, really transform the profile of cricket in the next two years, so that more people simply get it
because it’s worth getting, right, but currently there IS a smallish, arguably fairly narrow range of people who are kinda culturally-familiar with the game, so we do have to commit to something bubble-breakingly ambitious. I think that revolutionary moment is nearly upon us and I hope our commitment is kosher. Tweaking rules or formats is all very well but we have to get to more people in AS WELL.
So that mission. I’m proud and excited to be part of all that but c’mon, let’s all get on it?
On the T20 thing let’s resolve the City v Counties issue in such a way that County Cricket really benefits. Not good to have a spectacular, ‘world-class’ City T20 that further closes the door on the traditional form (which is maybe dead in the water without T20blast money?) Can’t see how two UK boomathons can co-exist, myself, so this feels like MAJOR. Major comprises, major, generous, philosophically-informed as well as commercially-driven conversations. Let’s be avvin um.
I would also like to play cricket… but there’s no realistic chance of that. So maybe contribute elsewhere. Coaching, social media-ing, writing. Try not to think about the pleasure of running in or fluking the occasional cover drive. In fact stop thinking about that RIGHT NOW. Work to do.
On the tribal front, I want a better year for Glamorgan. The fella Croft will know he needs to feed more successfully off the goodwill and bourgeoning welshnesses in and around his developing squad, because the times conspire against patience. Great that he’s actively promoting and supporting homegrown players – and I’m told that Huw Morris should also take a lot of credit for this – but clearly results must improve. Lots of us are heartened by (for example) the offer of a 3 year contract (and the security that offers) to young off-spinner Andrew Salter and by Van der Gugten’s emergence but as somebody said re another, similarly competitive industry, ‘goals pay the rent’. On the short-format front, I personally enjoyed Dai Steyn’s run-outs at The SSE Swalec and the form of his compatriot Colin Ingram and of Aneurin Donald. I think I have starts in the night, mind, around the first of those two batsmen being tempted away by a large, hairy cheque. The local lad we imagine will stay and build a wonderful welsh story…
Back at England level I think we are actually half-decent. We just can’t compete with India on their patch. Of course this isn’t acceptable… and we have to look at ways to get better.
With my Elderish Statesman wiv Worldview head on, I still wonder if there isn’t something frankly unintelligent about the drive for ‘positive cricket’ (in Tests, in particular) or at least the relentlessness of the pursuit of it. It feels ridiculous not to have real game awareness ahead of the need to fight back aggressively or ‘express yourself/back yourself’ at all times. Been mentioned before but there’s a significant clue in the label here: Test Cricket. It’s not about swapping macho gestures – although we accept absolutely that bravado or boldness will play a part. Often it’s about patience, playing within yourself, seeing things out, as opposed to needing to express some weird domination throughout every moment. This is a contest over time and that’s beautiful, unique, crafty, cerebral, tense-in-a-different way. We all get that young athletes wanna be sexy and strong – stronger than their oppo’s – but sometimes it’s dumb and counter-productive to fall for that as An Approach. It may be tempting, in a bullish cohort of Fit Young Things, to go the easy way of expressing superiority through spunkiness but hello-o you don’t have to be a reactionary retard to make the argument that this may be simplistic nonsense unworthy of high-grade sport… which demands intelligence as well as testosterone.
There, I did it. Got struck off David Warner’s Christmas Card list. And Michael Vaughan’s. And everyone under thirty.
Final word on that Culture Of thing. Get absolutely that dynamism is central to impact/saleability/maybe growth. But drama is not always poptastic and colorifically-enhanced: sometimes it’s symphonic, ma’an.
So I want the Wider Game to be looked after. I’m bit suspicious of the race to funkier kit – essential though that may be. I want County and Test Cricket to dig in or be propped up until we’ve kappowed that bubble of limitations and shown everybody what an extraordinary, diverse, exciting game we have. The range of possibilities, of intrigues are maybe a language that must be learned – and therefore they may demand unfashionable levels of attention – but draw folks in and make them welcome and hallelujah! Something great happens. Longer forms are worth supporting not just for sentimental reasons but because they are essential to the romance on the one hand and the learning or skill-acquisition on the other. Tests and County Cricket must be sympathetically nuanced til crowds are meaningful and/or income from the ECB or telly or T20 action means there is a secure place for the next Baby Boycs as well as the next Ben Stokes.
That’s all I ask
except, naturally, for an absurdly fit-again Dai Steyn to come steaming in from the Cathedral Rd End / an absolute production-line of great welsh cricketers / a regular & successful & appreciated slot for Andrew Salter / a mindblowing series of tons from Nye Donald…
sportslaureate 