Starting Early Aiming High

Tony Middleton tells Jane Cable about his new role

There is no doubt that Hampshire has an Academy we can be very proud of. With Tony Middleton as Director, the Academy has regularly contributed players to the England age groups and in each of the last two years has had three of its members graduate to development contracts with the County.

But this year Tony’s remit has broadened, as he explains. “I’ve become more involved with the Hampshire Cricket Board’s development department so I’m spending more time with players who are underneath the Academy. This has meant that I’ve had to give some things up, so I’m not actually running the Second Team now; Jon Ayling’s going to do that. I’ve also got some support from Iain Brunnschweiler with the Academy training programmes, including taking over from Jon to look after the team for their league matches on Saturdays. My role now is really developing players right from Under 10 through to First Class cricket. It’s quite a big remit and I’m looking forward to the challenge.”

For those unaware of the player development structure within the County, Hampshire Cricket itself only runs the professional side of the game, including the Academy and Elite Player Programme. The Hampshire Cricket Board runs everything else, including the leagues and the recreational game from Kwik Cricket in schools to the club game at a senior level. The development department, which looks after junior age group cricket, is based at The Rose Bowl which allows for excellent communication between the professional staff.

Tony’s involvement with the Cricket Board will strengthen these ties. “I’m hoping to widen the net of players that we’re looking at in the younger ages,” he told me. “I want to look at the way we select players for our programmes, then once they’re on the programmes to improve the contact time we have with them so that we can have a greater impact on their development. We’ve had a good record in the last few years producing players for our own side – I think there were eleven who played First Class cricket for Hampshire last season, which I imagine is better than any other County. But the next step for me is ensuring that we’re improving the quality of those players; so far we’ve only had Chris Tremlett play full international cricket and I want to see more of our players go on the achieve this.

“Plus producing Hampshire teams who are going to win Championships. Although we’ve done very well in one day cricket we want to produce a side that can win all the trophies and that’s what I’m aiming to do with my programme. We start our County age groups with Under 10 and I will certainly be more involved at that level – and right the way through to Under 17s. It’s very different adapting my style to the various age groups and players of differing maturity but it’s a skill I’m gaining through experience!”

All the Hampshire coaching staff are involved with the Academy players at some stage in their development. Apart from Iain Brunnschweiler’s extended role, Bobby Parks looks after the youngsters on the Elite Player Programme as well as coaching the keepers, Jon Ayling works with the bowlers and Giles White helps Tony with the batters over the winter.  Tony also calls on the skills of former Hampshire player Raj Maru to work with the spin bowlers, and this winter current Hampshire team members Jimmy Adams and James Tomlinson have helped out too.

This year the Academy has eleven cricketers on its books, one of whom, Wilf Marriott, is jointly coached by his school, Radley. All the others train at The Rose Bowl several times a week. “We started our programme at the beginning of November” Tony explains. “The lads who have finished their GCSEs come in three times a week including two one-to-one sessions for three hours. The younger guys come in once a week for a one-to-one, and they all come in on a Sunday afternoon for a longer session as a group.

“In the summer they have their match programmes which can be anything from their own school cricket right the way through to Hampshire Second XI, and they also come in for regular training sessions either with the Second XI or as an Academy. Plus they’re still doing their one-to-ones so we see quite a bit of them over the summer. “

Hampshire fans interested in the progress of the next generation of players can follow the Academy team’s progress in the Southern Electric Premier League, starting with their game against Bournemouth on 1st May. A full list of fixtures can be found at http://www.southernpremierleague.com/2009-fixtures/1411-2010-fixtures-division-1.html.

Jane Cable
 

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