County Age Groups Winter Review and Summer Preview

17 Apr 2025   |   By Ed McCabe

It has been a pleasure for me to come to Herefordshire Cricket in late February and see various aspects of a winter programme in full swing and much of the summer already in place thanks to the hard work of Claire and the wider Team. 

My thanks go to the coaches who have run many sessions this winter, often finishing deep into the evening and offering unseen hours of planning and reflection. This winter retained the experienced Herefordshire County Coaches Christiaan Ferreira, Phil Anderson, Phil Knight, Brandon Caffull, Shameer Ahmed and Pete Gale and has also seen an injection of youth via the likes of Sam Fitzmaurice, Ritchie Harley, Tom Pilkington and Archie Grimsey. The latter three are all on an undergraduate cricket and sports coaching course at the University of Worcester so we like to think they are at the cutting edge! Whilst the game of cricket does seem to be modernising and evolving at pace its fundamentals are constant, so that experience we have in the coaching team is also vital.

The Girls County coaches have also proved a formidable team, and thanks are due to Georgina Sockett, Hannah Skipworth Holly Brooks-Owen, Archie Grimsey and Kate Brazier.

Something new this winter was the establishment of a Boys MCC Foundation Coaching ‘Hub’ for U14/16 children missing out on County training who attend a state school: this attracted 18 players who have all thrived under the watchful tutelage of Nick Ashton, Sam, Pete and Georgina. We really want to replicate this for Girls this coming winter.

We’ve also run a Boys ECB Emerging Players Programme in conjunction with Worcestershire County Cricket Club who supplied our Head Coach, Stuart Houghton. Stuart has led challenging Monday night sessions, 6-9pm, since November for 5 officially registered EPP players; Will Kennedy, Ben Lowe, Gabe Albright, Rufus Lapsley and George Heywood and the Junior EPP lads: Avitej Singh, Max Harris, Ralph Elliot, Noah Herbert, Finn Goodwin and James Nolan. Many thanks to these and all players to their commitment to proper training over the winter. 

This week actually saw the start of the outdoor summer programme with the Boys Under 11s taking on a Gloucestershire based side of Apperley and Aston Ingham CC players and it was impressive to see our youngsters battling not only the opposition but also some not inconsiderable wind and rain to truly remind us all of the challenges of the outdoor season!

More than a hundred other games will follow on at a pace and we wish all the players all the luck in the world as they take on opposition from up and down the Country.

The Boys Under 11s, 12s and 13s games will all be ‘friendlies’ offering vital match play opportunities which are obviously so different to the nets and sports hall challenges of the winter. The Under 14s, and 16's will also play in ECB Competitions with the u18's playing in T20, 50 over and two- day formats. We are also hoping to revamp a Development Squad for over 18s with aspirations to play for our National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA) 1st Team. We have Girls Teams at Under 11s, 13s and 15s overseen by Kate Brazier and of course, they all now have the new Women’s 1st XI to aspire to play for. (Good Luck for their first match, away at Northumberland this Sunday!)

In November 2025 we will be taking part in ECB’s new national initiative called the ‘Early Engagement Programme’ for boys and girls. This will consolidate our programme of bigger squads and more local and friendly cricket for Under 11s- 13s and also challenge us to unearth talented players from new places and communities using wider methods of engagement, talent ID and cricket provision.

One thing that has genuinely struck me about our CAG Programme is the number of parents who say that their child really enjoys playing for Herefordshire. This can be despite having to deal with the number of defeats a small County inevitably has to face. I sincerely hope this love of cricket, pride in playing for the County and enjoyment of the sport carries on aplenty this summer.

Please follow all our scores and results on: Herefordshire Cricket and we do also hope to post on our social pages when we get some outstanding performances.

Ed McCabe

Cricket Performance Manager