A cricketing journey

All of our journeys are different. Mine became cricket after my dad sent me to Temple Cloud Cricket Clubs junior training in January 1976. Up until then, my experience had been limited to four junior school matches at Wells Cathedral school, when I was ten years old. My first match resulted in a duck and we were bowled out for 20. Our sports master, Mr Goodgame (it was anything but) suggested we play again. I made another duck. I couldn't see the attraction and drifted away until that cold winters night two years later. I came home hooked!
 
I loved football too, but cricket became my obsession. I couldn't get enough. Temple Cloud nets every Thursday evening in the summer and two afternoons a week at school, on Cedars Field where mowers and rollers still hadn't been introduced! You learned to watch the ball though... In the winters? Nothing before Christmas with Temple Cloud and nothing at the school at all.
 
I obviously had to find my own way to practice. A cricket ball in a stocking became one of my 'go to' sessions. Out in the garage, tapping away for hours on end. Little did I realise that I was developing a muscle memory. I thought I was just driving, pulling, cutting - (blocking).
 
When it was dry, a tennis ball and a wall. Garden features were fielders. Pathways and gates were gaps. As I grew older, a golf ball replaced the tennis ball and a stick instead of a bat. I tested my courage by throwing harder and faster and to see how my reactions coped. Not for the first or last time did I test the slip fielders catching abilities. Nor the last time I was rapped on the knuckles! A few windows suffered - and so did I!
 
It was great fun though and I was constantly trying to invent new ways of developing my skills and thinking in general. I have always tried to do that as a coach. If something works, repeat it - its not rocket science. However, its important to ensure the player remains engaged - story telling / scenarios / different tools / raise the challenge.
 
This is what I hope we can bring to Runmaka VR too. We have so many plans and ideas. At the moment, we're probably at the stage where I was trudging off after my second duck in a day. I didn't know what lay ahead then and I don't now, but....
 
It's not what we are, but what we can be...