Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Mark Stokes.
At a time when cricket is still trying to find the best way to engage youngsters, one Canterbury state school has seen its programme go from strength to strength, writes sports editor
When Phil Relf became Canterbury Academy’s director of sport in 2013, he admitted the school’s cricket programme was ‘pretty limited’. You could count the number of interested youngsters on one hand and organised games were few and far between. Four years on and the academy now boasts a core of 50-plus players and regularly fields teams in three different age groups – under-18, under-15 and under-13. The middle group (under-15s) were beaten finalists in this summer’s Kent Cup but while pleased with that achievement, Relf says just getting more youngsters playing the game is his real motivation. Relf, an ECB Level 4 coach who, in his playing days captained St Lawrence & Highland Court, said: “Along with football (he used to be a goalkeeper), cricket’s my sport, so when I took the job I was keen to get something going. “When I arrived, there might have been a couple of lads in Year 10 who played cricket but nothing major. “The first year when we had a game we had to provide all the gear, whites, pads, boxes, helmets, gloves, the lot. So we’d take this massive kit bag with us. “But for the first under-13 game this season, every kid that played had their own cricket bat, so we are starting to attract kids who are already playing outside school which represents progress. With school cricket, it is very much about participation. It’s great we got a side through to a county cup final but I suppose success for us would be a couple of sides in each age group eventually and maybe a couple of eight-a-side teams
‘I think with school cricket it is very much about participation’
because as a young kid in an eight-a-side team, you’ve got far more chance to get involved in the game.” Before joining the Canterbury Academy, Relf worked at Kent County Cricket Club in several roles, including assistant first team coach and academy director. He also spent six months at New Zealand’s High Performance Centre. One of the first things he did when he switched jobs was launch a sixth form programme with his inaugural inductee being wicketkeeperbatsman Ryan Davies who played at Kent and is now at Somerset. The academy continues to have close links with the county club, with whom they now run the sixth-form programme as a partnership. Andy Griffiths, Kent’s community cricket director, has been instrumental in setting up the partnership, part of which allows the academy to offer a Level 2 qualification as part of their curriculum which means students are tutored by qualified ECB staff. Kent players including James Tredwell and Darren Stevens, as well as ex-skipper Rob Key, have all run sessions within the 10-12 hours a week schedule which runs alongside students’ academic curriculum. Relf said: “What we have got now is several levels. What we worried about when we launched was whether people
‘It’s for any kids who are passionate about cricket’
would think it’s only for the Ryan Davies’ of this world – the county prospects – but it’s definitely not. “It’s for any kids who are passionate about cricket and think ‘you know what, I want to go from my club second team to my club first team’ or ‘I just want to devote 10 hours of my week to cricket and train properly’. It’s about giving them that chance. Relf says the fact that students can combine their cricket with studying gives them the best of both worlds. He added: “We have a real range of qualifications, they can go down the traditional route of three A levels with their cricket, although a lot of them go for a B Tech qualification where they can specialise in sport. “They have the opportunity to study 12 hours of sport a week in topics like sports psychology, nutrition, coaching methods etc. “Sitting along that, they train in their own sport, it’s a nice combination and a good pathway for someone interested in sport, either as player, coach, support staff or whatever.”