Encouraging People to play cricket

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Re: Encouraging People to play cricket

Simbazz there's plenty of cricket opportunities for them rest assured - I mean they can even get up at 6.30 in the morning and have half hour on the field with me in the summer before I go to work and I'm not kidding!!! Needless to say they decline the offer!
 
Re: Encouraging People to play cricket

Commited dad, if you stick like that, without pressuring them, and just asking them, then i see no reason as to why they wont grow up to fill the boots.

With your enthusiasm, they can't have a better dad to teach them either.
 
Re: Encouraging People to play cricket

I can only reiterate what Simbazz has already posted. Fantastic Dave; you're definitely on the right track :D
 
Re: Encouraging People to play cricket

Let's hope it works out and they're up for it more this summer, I know loads of their friends love it when we all have a game and so do the Mum's and Dad's! I'm sure it'll come together.
 
Re: Encouraging People to play cricket

Some good news - Both my boys without any prompting from me have signed up to do an hours worth of cricket coaching at a local sports centre as part of a cross schools activity/fun thing to encourage kids into sports and activities.

It's this Thursday coming and I'm tempted to take the morning off of work to go and watch and see how they get on. The only thing is I'm not holding my breath as we live in a pretty working class/football/chav type area and I wouldn't be surprised if my two boys are the only ones that sign up and therefore it gets cancelled?
 
Re: Encouraging People to play cricket

Update on this - My boys had a leaflet go around their school a couple of weeks ago highlighting a heap of activities that were going on at a local council leisure/sports centre. There was all the usual things that you'd expect - eye catching "Exciting stuff" - kick boxing, extreme this and extreme that and on Thursday 10am to 11am "Cricket". Not extreme cricket or death cricket, just your bog standard "Cricket" and without any prompting (Much to my wifes dismay) both my boys opted to do cricket!

So this morning I skipped work and took them down to the leisure centre with no idea as to what was going to happen armed with the knowledge that there was only going to be 4 kids in total unless more had signed up yesterday.

Just after 10 a bloke turned up "Matt" from Essex County Cricket Club and away he went. The bloke was brilliant! My 2 boys are quite shy and the other 2 kids initially gave the impression of being confident in their abilities of being potential cricketers, one citing that he'd been trialed by a team or similar. The bloke Matt went through warm ups - all cricket specific, gradually building towards arming them with balls and eventually bats. He taught them how to bowl and then a front foot drive and then they all played kwik cricket.

My kids went from being vaguely interested in cricket to a new level, my little-un who's 6 turned out to be the best catcher and the my older son who's the least interested turned out to be the best seam bowler and batsman.

The interesting thing was that the bloke kept the pace moving all the time, never at any point were they doing anything long enough for any of them to get bored or recognise that they weren't particularly good at it. Even at the end when they were playing competitively against each other instead of letting my oldest lad hog the limelight and accumulate an ever increasing total they renewed the game started afresh giving other kids the chance to shine and possibly be the winner. The bloke was brilliant.

Both my lads as you'll have read above only have a vague interest in cricket and I run the risk of being accused of over-kill and diminishing their chances of taking the sport up. They both came away saying they'd given it 9 out of 10 for fun!
 
Re: Encouraging People to play cricket

Yeah I sure was and the good thing was they were too especially the older son Ben, he hit the middle stump wth his first ball after the bloke had gone through bowling with them all. I think it makes a big difference to boys when other blokes other than their Dads comment on thier abilities or show them stuff like this.

It was well worth sloping off of work for the morning and potentially getting my ear bent for doing so.
 
Re: Encouraging People to play cricket

Sounds like your boys enjoyed it, which is the most important thing. Also, seems like the guy who ran the course knew his stuff, which always helps, nothing worse than a poor teacher.
 
Re: Encouraging People to play cricket

Matt's a great coach and they all have a fantastic way with children. If they are interested, get them over to the Aswell Graham Gooch Cricket Centre at the Ford County Ground for some courses. The last one I attended there were about 36 little people, split into six teams having the greatest fun of their lives. The coaches there know how to push the buttons!
 
Re: Encouraging People to play cricket

Wow, exciting times ahead there Dave, enjoy the father-son games to come!

Yeh, when my dad says how good I do I don't really take it seriously because he has never played cricket, but he's seen enough to know what's good, so I think I should really take his word more seriously.
 
Re: Encouraging People to play cricket

Jonesy - Good on the old bloke, some kids fathers don't give them the time of day mine never, so if your old mans there giving you some encouragement that's a good thing, hopefully you'll do the same some day!
 
Re: Encouraging People to play cricket

My dad encouraged me a lot. He used to take me to a park and play with me. I had a lot of fun and thats how I picked up my interest. Later when I was 11 we moved to a better neighborhood and it had better cricketing facilities nearby so he got me into a club then and I have loved playing ever since.
 
Re: Encouraging People to play cricket

That's the plan - I'm not going to force them, I just hope that bit by bit they learn to appreciate the sport for what it is and learn to be proficient at some aspect of it.
 
Re: Encouraging People to play cricket

Both my parents came to every game they could last season, it's quite cool knowing that your parents are really rooting for you to play well. I was never really into cricket until the past year or so, so it's been helpful of my Dad to give me any tips he can, and it's been great that he's come along to almost every match so far.
 
Re: Encouraging People to play cricket

Yeah my parents used to come to watch me play too. Or at least one of them would come. It feels nice to play in front of them. Good luck Dave. I hope your kids take interest in cricket and enjoy it as much as you do.
 
Re: Encouraging People to play cricket

I've just made a massive break through on this with my kids -

The plan was that I'd take Ben and Joe to Basildon's colts training session at Woodlands school today and then on Tuesday night Michelle would take them to Grays CC colts training down in Tilbury on Tuesday night. I think right from the start the odds were stacked against Grays and when Ben the older son came out of the session with Basildon this morning exclaiming, "That was AWESOME"! I think the deal was already a done. Michelle, my wife isn't up for driving them down to Tilbury at all and added to that it's in the evenings - everything was leading up to a negative response to the Grays option.......
"So, do you want to go and have a look at my teams sessions (Grays & Chadwell) on Tuesday night then"?
"I didn't like it at Grays..... they were too posh, I like here - I want to play for Basildon" Said Ben. Too posh - now that's an interesting assessment of the Grays lads! I think what it was, when we went along to the Grays colts set up in the summer, every single kid without exception was wearing whites and had their own bats and my impression is that they're all pretty good cricket players.

So, being only vaguely interested in cricket, my lads were very intimidated by the whole thing. Additionally, only Neil was there that night for the training and Super Dave hadn't turned up or something - leaving Neil with 20 boys to manage. Needless to say keeping 20 boys all on the go and active isn't exactly easy and that in itself meant that Ben and Joe were having to wait their turn for long periods of time. All things combined the whole experience just served to put them off rather than encourage them.

Several months later and more cricket on the Valence Way Wicket over the road with the local kids off the estate, and obviously more confidence - we went along to the Basildon cc colts session today.


First off there were 2 blokes split between 14 boys
There was differentiation - so my boys were put with 4 other boys who'd only been the week before and the "Good" kids trained with the other bloke.
They weren't all wearing whites. Now this might not seem like much of a big deal but I can clearly recall being from the "Poor" family when I was a kid that I didn't have a football strip back in the 1960's and all the "Talented" football kids did and this just knocks you back psychologically. It reinforces that sense that you are an outsider coming in to a new environment. Today at this session of the 14 boys that were there, maybe 4 or 5 of them were wearing whites, but the good thing was the better kids in the team weren't, they were wearing football shirts, so my lads straight away didn't feel like the odd ones out.
Similarly some of the better kids also used blue KWIK cricket bats and my lads turned up with their own bats and again this probably made them feel better about themselves?
But the clincher was the fact that - once they got going both my lads Ben and Joe were so obviously on par and if not better than the group of boys that they were with and it was good to see Ben itching to bat and bowl and show the bloke Neil that he was already on his way as an all-rounder. So it was brilliant to see them both getting in there and doing the stuff. They did warm up exercises and gradually got introduced to basic aspects of bowling and batting (I was listening and making notes for myself so that I can try and make some of improvements on my own batting)! The bloke Neil was really good he didn't make any assumptions about their abilities just went through the fundamentals and both my lads listened. He even went back over the points with them he'd covered asking them questions, it was a bit like watching the Bob Woolmer stuff on the internet! YouTube - Cricket: The Bob Woolmer Way - batting (1/8)

But then it got so much better - this session couldn't have been any better almost. They then instigated a match and split the boys into 2 teams. Ben's team was up first with the established kids obviously opening the batting and bowling and it was pretty obvious that bowling is not their strong point. There was a couple of kids that were okay, but there was shed loads of wides, full tosses and No-balls and this is with the proper colts and I just sat there thinking If Ben can just hold it together and not be nervous and be confident in his own abilities he is just going to look like the best bowler here. I asked him what he thought of their bowling after and he said that he thought there was a lot of wides bowled, but he didn't think he was the best. Eventually all the proper bowlers had their overs and it came down to the newbies and Ben being the modest little bloke that he is didn't get to bowl till last and then he bowled his over. Most of them were on target and none were given as wides or no-balls. The blokes noticed and so did the good kids all shouting encouragement and commending Ben on his abilities. Joe's bowling was similarly impressive considering he's only 7 and again I don't think he bowled any wides in his 2 overs. Joe almost got a bowled and Caught but fumbled it and his next ball was nearly caught at Short Mid wicket and he had one dropped at cover as well all in the final over when they were looking to score 12 off 6 balls and Joe's team beat Ben's by 3 runs.

With regards batting neither of them are accomplished bats and that's one of the reasons that I want them to go to these training sessions and to be trained by other people. I think I've done okay with them regarding their bowling - and things like cricket when we're on Holiday in Cornwall is massively good for them as there always seems to be really enthusiastic and adept players on the campsite when we're there and bowling against and with them has been very instrumental in their development as to is the cricket we play over at Valence way (See masthead). One of the things I need them to do and I think it'll come in time is to put themselves forward more, both of them hung back to bowl last and this is when Ben it could be argued was possibly the best bowler there and Joe for a 7 year old is no slouch either. Remember this is Joe Thompson Leg Spin Legend 9 wickets for 30! Joe Thompson Wrist Spin Legend

So I was well pleased that all my cajoling and encouragement has at last seemed to bear some fruit and Michelle it seems is on board with it as well. You never know maybe next week she'll turn up early and watch the end of the match!

So if you live in the Basildon area and you want your boys to play cricket I can whole heartedly recommend Basildon & Pitsea cc as good looking colts outfit - the boys and the blokes were all spot on today and we'll certainly be going back next week and Ben and Joe are hoping to become part of the club.

For more info see....

Wrist Spin Bowling
 
Re: Encouraging People to play cricket

Nice to hear that it went well. It really helps when the coaches know how to run a session or have least planned it.

Also sounds like the sessions you've been having are paying off, not least in giving the boys a little more confidence!
 
Re: Encouraging People to play cricket

Yep it seems to have all come together really well. I've spoken to them today about this coming Saturday and they're really up for it.
 
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