I’m sure we’ve all heard the phrase “Children are not mini adults”. I’ve been mulling over the idea that maybe “Adults are big children”. Here’s why. Across many sports and physical activities it seems the number of young children having a go are pretty good. I’d suggest that we are becoming increasingly good at kiddy-fying our activities to appeal to children. Smaller teams, more time playing, focusing on fun and inclusion. In some forward thinking […]

Running, managing and maintaining a successful youth section at any voluntary sports club is a challenge. The first challenge is to define what makes the set-up successful. Is winning junior leagues success? Is having huge numbers of players success? Is helping players gain representative honours success? Is providing a pathway into senior participation success? Is it possible to achieve all of the above? In an ideal world it probably is. The reality for many clubs […]

At one of the junior clubs I run we have traditionally played a weekly ladder competition that flows from week to week.  Over the past few months we have become really busy and with that have experienced an increase in the range of ages and standards of players present.  The ladder was becoming a competition that (I thought was) discouraging some players as they found themselves low down with a seemingly unassailable climb. I had […]

Having run a series of district and County competitions over the past month I have  a few observations to share. At at a Primary school County Final event, having played group stages we reached the stage whereby the County Champion would be crowned.  I had organised the event in such a way that every team would have the same number of fixtures and be involved right until the end of the day.  So, the final […]

The Devon Cricket Board requested a review of our project to include in material they will distribute to future participant clubs.  For those who haven’t heard of Chance to Shine, have a look here: http://www.chancetoshine.org/about/campaign The project was delivered by gingercoaching on behalf of Seaton Cricket Club. We worked with 6 primary schools with groups across KS2.  Initially sessions were led by our coach, but as weeks went on, the class teachers were given increased […]

I haven’t blogged on Learning Nutrition in action for a while, but this week had a great moment worthy of sharing. I you follow my posts you’ll know a bit about the junior badminton clubs I run.  At one I have a player who when involved in match play always brings about disagreements with the scores but usually only when playing with and against certain others.  This has been going on for as long as […]

I think a phrase coined by Sir Clive Woodward – Thinking Clearly Under Pressure.  It stands to reason that this is necessary for success in any competitive situation.  If we consider the “comfort-stretch-panic” curve, with optimal learning occurring in the zone at the top of stretch, just before we reach panic, then it is fair to say we will be in a situation where we feel under pressure.  The nearer panic we reach, the greater […]