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The Cyprus Cricket Association recently ventured into the second phase of its Coach Education programme in the space of 12 months. Having undertaken the Introductory Course in April 2004 the CCA has now completed its first ECB/ECC Level 1 Course with 11 Participants on the course including a number of teachers from local schools in Limassol. Based at Happy Valley Cricket Centre near Episkopi, Richard Cox (ECB/ECC) put the participants through their paces in Batting Bowling Fielding and Wicket-keeping before going into the key aspects of Long Term Athlete Development Programme and some of the fresher/newer thinking of ECB on the “How to Coach” skills of Instruction / Demonstration/ Explanation / Observation / Analysis and Feedback

Richard was then joined by Brian Foulkes former ECB Staff Coach (and resident of Cyprus) to complete the Assessments including a Multiple Choice Question Paper / Group Coaching and Demonstrations with some of the better 14/15 year olds from the CCA Development Programme. One notable attendee on the course was George Nikolau (Cypriot born and bred) who teaches PE at a local Limassol School. George embarked on the course having never seen or heard of Cricket before in his life other than conversations in the playground with ex-pat teachers and school children – a challenge for George indeed. Furthermore a challenge for his fellow coaches and Richard Cox – by the time the assessment was undertaken on the second weekend George had immersed himself in the Coaches Manual / Cards and the concept of LTAD. Not withstanding that and encouraged by fellow teachers each and every day he took the opportunity to work with his school kids in the playground before/after school in order to gain more knowledge of the game. So it was unsurprising that under assessment conditions Brian Foulkes found his wicket keeping session exemplary/his demo’s “wholesome” and his debrief “engaging” whilst he topped it off with a score of 36/50 on his written paper !!! – incredible.

Interestingly March 5th was registration day for the new CCA youth coaching programme and 91 children turned up to register for coaching for the next 10 weeks leading to a Festival and Competition in May. Coincidentally shortly after the registration day ECC issued its facts and figures for the ASP for 2005/6 showing Cyprus well-down on youth participants – with an intake like this and coaches like George Nikolau accolades cannot be far away for the programme which is run on a “scant” budget overseen by a tireless Steve Carr (Chairman) and Richard Steenhuis (Secretary) The candidates on the course will definitely be busy having completed their assessments with lots of talent to work with in the coming months.

Steve Carr closed the weekend by organising a game of 6 a side Cricket with the coaches and Assessors – Richard Cox partnered by the erstwhile George Nikolau was comfortably outscored as the two teams polished off a most enjoyable course in the hazy Cyprus Spring sunshine – remember the name George Nikolau !!

Finally the Cyprus league season commences on May 8th with 12 teams now competing in 2 Divisions including promotion and relegation – for further information on Cricket in Cyprus go to www.cypruscricket.com