Relaxation time short lived

October tends to be the month when cricketers get some time off from cricket and can relax. It is also the time many go away on holiday and forget about the exhausting season. I managed to get away with my Wife to Cyprus for a week. Unfortunately for myself and Andy the relaxation time is short lived as we have our own coaching business which kicked off for the winter on the 16th October. I guess you could say myself and Andy have cricket in our blood!

One of the first courses of our winter coaching was the masterclass days. With our contacts in the Professional game we can call some really experienced names to run coaching for the children around the North and Midlands of England. Anthony McGrath (the newly appointed Yorkshire captain), Adil Rashid and Gerard Brophy were just a few of the Yorkshire 1st teamers who ran some sessions for us. When you have these coaches working with groups of ten or less, the children have a great opportunity to learn from the wealth of experience and cricketing knowledge the stars bring with them.

Back to Professional cricket. What an escape we had from relegation! Going into day two on 80 for 7 needing 400 for the batting bonus points and our only chance of survival, everybody had written us off as relegated. Step up to the plate Adil Rashid and David Wainwright. A day later we had declared on 400 for 9 with both lads scoring valuable centuries. We drew the game, got full bonus points and just survived the drop. Add to that promotion to the Pro 40 1st division and a semi final in the Friends Provident and it turned out to be quite a good season for us.

On a personal note it was a disastrous season from an injury point of view. I spent four months on the sidelines with two torn hamstrings and a torn calf muscle. Having never been injured in my life and been one of the fittest in the Yorkshire squad it was a bitter pill to swallow. I have sat down with the Physios and Fitness Coaches at Yorkshire and worked out a plan for this winter to hopefully solve my injury problems and come back fit and raring to go for the 2009 season.

On the business side of life as I have already said our coaching company ‘Pro Coach Cricket Academy’ is going really well. We have plans in place to branch out to all Northern and Midlands Counties and get Professionals from them Counties running the coaching. Look out for our new website which will be launched by the 20th of November which will include some coaching material (videos and interviews) from the stars of todays games who will guide any cricketers through their way of playing the game. We are also looking for a kit/website sponsor for next year. The exposure we can provide is huge with over 1000 children on our books now, a website with 2000 unique hits per week and a chance to be associated with the biggest cricket coaching company in England.