The Teesra

Category: culture

how the game is played, and the environment in which it is played

  • New ECB hubs with Government funding? What really matters?

    New ECB hubs with Government funding? What really matters?

    With the Essex Over 60s 1st XI due to play Yorkshire Vets at Bradford Park Avenue last week†, I was reminded of the recent news about the new cricket centre in Bradford, and the (then) Government’s promise of £35m funding to support “grassroots” cricket.

    The talk of “16 new hubs by 2030” was, perhaps, all too reminiscent of the promise to build “40 new hospitals for the NHS”. And with the demise of the Conservative government, it might be that this funding never does come through.

    But I do wonder if the emphasis on investing in building new cricket hubs was ever really the best strategy.

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  • Review — “Something in the Water: The Story of England’s Football Talent Hotbeds”. And some thoughts on “natural” talent development environments.

    Interesting conversation on Xtter last week on talent development in English football, and the next generation of superstars.

    So Callum Murray’s Something in the Water: The Story of England’s Football Talent Hotbeds provided some very timely background reading, with a case-study of the emergence of south London as a hotbed of soccer talent development,

    Front cover of “Something in the Water”, by Callum Murray. Four footballers set against the background of a brick wall with a football goal painted on it.

    Murray identifies some of the factors common across old and new hotbeds — working class communities with strong community support for children and their aspirations, space (and time) to play — but goes on to address some of the reasons why south London is now outperforming areas in the north of England that have traditionally produced disproportionate numbers of top footballers.

    And there could, perhaps, be cross-over for cricket, and other sports, looking for new talent.

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  • What makes a good “development” club?

    I posted earlier today on a proposal for an alternative development pathway for U13 cricket in England.

    In that post, I included a set of criteria for identifying a “good” club — good, in this context, meaning one that could be entrusted with leading a local development cluster at U13.

    The list originated in a discussion of a fictitious “Top 100 Clubs” feature article for one of the cricket magazines, to sit alongside their “Top 100 Schools” pieces.

    I left the list as a work-in-progress, but it is, perhaps, an interesting project it its own right.

    My initial list:

    • Retention — do players stay with the Club over time, or drift in and out again?
    • Accessibility & inclusion (both by ability & age — good clubs welcome late starters).
    • Diversity of players & coaches (contentious; needs to be context-sensitive; difficult to quantify).
    • Parental engagement (see above).
    • “Lived” coaching philosophy — do coaches “walk the walk”?
    • Outreach & recruitment (active or passive?).
    • Further down the list: games won — I do believe that winning matters!
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