Lord extolls coaching education

Gordon Lord, the ECB's Elite Coach Development Manager, has outlined the ongoing success of coach education in England and Wales - and explains why it continues to be so important to cricket's overall health...

Question: You were born in Birmingham, you played for Warwickshire and Worcestershire, and for 14 years since 1992 have been involved with the national governing body of cricket. For the last nine years you have been based here at Edgbaston, leading the ECB's coach education programme. Why did you leave your offices here in April?

Answer: It's not that I've left the ECB, or that I won't ever be around at Edgbaston again! As of April 3, our coach education function was separated into two distinct parts. Tim Lumb now leads the Community function and, with the team at Edgbaston, is responsible for running the programmes at and around Levels 1, 2 and 3. Heather Nash and myself are now responsible for a new "Elite Coach Development Unit" which focusses on the development of coaches in the county and international arena. This is an incredibly exciting time for coach education generally and this new structure reflects the increasing recognition of the importance of coaching at all levels of the game

Question: So why is coach education so vital to English cricket's success?

Answer: There is without doubt a direct relationship between coaching and player development and performance at all levels. Success on the field at the very highest level impacts throughout the game by increasing interest, aspiration and investment. Coaching is, therefore, "business critical". You only have to look at what happened in last year's Ashes series to see what success for the national team does for the health of the game. Coach education seeks to ensure that coaches are suitably equipped to support the development of players at all levels. By ensuring that the foundations are in place with high-quality coaches operating in the school, club, district, junior county, county and representative environments, we are investing in the continued growth of the game.

Question: How did you get involved in coaching, and how best can you illustrate the success of the coach education programme, nationwide, during the past decade?

Answer: As a young county cricketer, I shared my winters between working in training and development for the Lucas Group and coaching in South Africa. When my playing career ended in 1991, I made the decision to pursue a career in coaching and following an eight-month spell as a Cricket Development Officer with the Wrekin District Council I was invited to take on coaching responsibility for the South-West Region and to coach the England Under 15 squad. I was privileged to work with Keith Andrew and Bob Carter and their outstanding team of national coaches in this role for several years. When Bob Carter retired, Micky Stewart asked me to take over the Coach Education Department and that's how we arrived at where we are today. I coach less now than I did, but I still manage to get a track suit on a couple of times a week and I still really enjoy it.

During the past eight years, since the launch of the new national coaching scheme, more than 26,500 people have qualified as Level 1 coaches through the ECB's coach education programme. At Level 2, we have achieved between 700 and 800 new graduates each year and more than 6,000 have qualified at that level since 1997. At Level 3 the numbers are about 90 annually and 640 in total, while at the Elite Level 4 stage we currently have 43 graduates and 44 more coaches still working their way towards that level of qualification.

Of those 43 Level 4 graduates, people like Tom Moody and John Bracewell have since gone on to be appointed as international coaches with Sri Lanka and New Zealand respectively, and I think the ECB coach education programme is so highly rated that we will see more and more of 'our' top coaches being head-hunted for jobs around the world. In addition, key domestic roles are now filled by Level 4 coaches.

Last year, cricket and rugby union became the first sports to achieve full endorsement for their Level 1 and 2 qualifications from the United Kingdom Coaching Certificate, establishing cricket as a 'UK market leader' in coach education. A vital contribution towards this success was made by the Lord's Taverners who, since 2002, have funded a programme in which selected Level 3 coaches travel to other major cricketing and sporting nations to research, identify and report back on 'best practice".

Coaches Phil Relf, Jason Weaver (both of whom are now employed by ECB and have played key roles in the development of the new UKCC qualifications), Richard Bates and Phil Newport went initially to Australia and New Zealand,and their findings have been incorporated into ECB's UKCC qualification, and other coaches have since visited India, Sri Lanka, South Africa and the USA - where the Boston Red Sox spring training camp was the subject of a study.

Question: What happens after Level 4? And is it in the development of that area that you are now working on in your new position?

Answer: Yes it is, and the natural progression of coaches beyond Level 4 is very interesting to me and, again, vital to the continued excellence of the
coach education programme. Coaches operating in the elite arena tend to either work as a head coach, in the way that Duncan Fletcher does for instance, or they specialise and work more in discipline-specific areas, like for example Troy Cooley and Kevin Shine in fast bowling, or David Parsons in spin bowling.

It is therefore essential that we provide opportunities for coaches to pursue learning in their chosen "pathway" either as a "specialist" or as a "head coach" through the provision of training programmes and opportunites to meet other coaches. There is a great deal of science and research involved in modern coaching but ultimately we recognise that "Good coaches coach technique, great coaches coach people". A great deal of time in modern coach education is therefore spent encouraging coaches to deal with "people first and players second".

As for why the continued development and improvement of our programmes are vital, I need merely repeat what the great athletics coach and motivational guru Frank Dick once said: "The only truly sustainable competitive advantage is to learn faster than your opposition".

Question: During the winter you received the Dyson Award at the Sports Coach UK Coach of the Year Awards for your 'influential and sustained contribution to the development of individual coaches and coaching'. That was a proud moment?

Answer: Yes, of course, but I must say that I felt that I received the award on behalf of a fantastic team of people who have worked tirelessly to produce what we believe is the most successful and respected cricket coach education programme in the world. Cricket actually won an unprecedented three awards - with Duncan Fletcher winning Coach of the Year and Troy Cooley being awarded the Mussabini Medal.

The financial and logistical support we have all received from ECB, and from the NCA before that, has been enormous and Keith Andrew, Micky Stewart, Bob Carter and more recently Hugh Morris have been brilliant in ensuring that this has been so. It has been a privilege for me to be involved for these past 14 years, and it still is.