I always knew I wanted to go into coaching. I started when I was playing football at university, coaching the women’s second team, and I just loved designing the sessions and working with everyone.
When I could, I continued doing bits of coaching while I played cricket. Towards the end of my career, I then started running the girls’ Emerging Player Programme at Gloucestershire. That was designed as a bit of a transition plan, helping me to get more experience running a programme.
Then, last year, I became aware of the ECB’s new Female Professional Player to Coach Programme, whilst undertaking my ECB Specialist Coach (L4) qualification. It was a new initiative and it looked really good, so I decided to apply for it. I’m so glad I did. The course has given me new insight and support that I can use going forward in my coaching.
We’ve had lots of contact days, which have been great. Some have been in person, in the Cotswolds and in Loughborough, and others have been remote. By the nature of the programme, we’re a cohort of players and ex-players and these contact days are a bit like a reunion. They’re players I grew up with, so it’s great fun sharing ideas, catching up, and seeing how everyone’s going.
Alongside that, we’ve also been doing a lot of learning and reflection. A lot of the content has been around self-awareness, getting to know yourself, and understanding how you turn up in coaching sessions. That’s been really helpful.
We’ve also shadowed the Loughborough Lightning Netball Super League team, which was a great experience. As a new head coach, seeing how they structure and organise their performance programme was incredibly useful. I’m not ashamed to say I stole several ideas from them.
Finally, there’s been mentorship throughout the programme. We were each assigned a mentor to catch up with throughout the year. Karen Brown, who was involved with GB Hockey when they won the Gold medal at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, has been my mentor – and she’s been brilliant.
I find learning from other sports just so useful. It’s great to be able to bounce ideas off each other and use that to develop what we do in cricket. Karen came to visit me in my environment at Gloucestershire. She observed my training session, which was really useful. It’s always good to have another pair of eyes giving you a different perspective.
My cohort is a really supportive group. At the moment, I’m one of the first one’s of us who’s full time coaching, and it feels like everyone on the programme is rooting for me. The content of the course has obviously added to that as well.
I can say for certain that I love coaching. Even on the tough days, it’s a great job. I always say this to my team: it’s hard fun. It’s tough in terms of the skills you’re doing and what you’re dealing with, but it’s just so fulfilling.
At the Vitality Blast League 2 Finals Day, I was watching my team play and everything I wanted to bring to life was coming through. I couldn’t have been happier.
I’d definitely recommend the Female Professional Player to Coach Programme. Something we do really well in women’s sport is build community. Going from playing professionally to coaching, or other roles in the working world, is a tricky transition. But having that community and expertise around me has been so, so important. If someone’s thinking about applying, I wouldn’t hesitate: go for it.