Intro: Sara is our Women’s Softball Manager and one of our awesome junior coaching team. Last season Sara coached our under 6’s on a Friday night and co-ran our inter squad games for under 8’s and 10’s on a Saturday morning.

Coaching certification: ECB Coach Support Worker & ECB Foundation 1 Coach.

Coaching experience: After completing her Coach Support Worker course Sara began supporting our 2019 junior Winter training programme. The winter programme gave Sara the opportunity to gain some experience of what coaching junior cricketers involved.

When the opportunity arose for a Women only coaching course Sara completed her ECB Foundation 1 to become a qualified coach and she hasn't looked back. Sara will tell you that it has been one of the best and most rewarding decisions she has ever made. Seeing the group of kids have fun and improve week on week is amazing.

Philosophy and bio: My philosophy when coaching the under 6’s is to provide them with a safe and fun environment in which they can develop a love for cricket and gain some basic level cricket understanding and skills. Once they get the cricket bug and are having fun, the skills will develop over time as they progress through the age groups.

I have always had a love for cricket and spent a lot of time in my late teens at Caverswall Cricket Club (watching, never playing). I loved the friendly environment and atmosphere within the cricket club. When my son was looking to start cricket back in 2015, age 5, I was delighted to find that Whitmore had the same ethos and environment as Caverswall.

As he progressed at Whitmore I got involved in the admin for the junior section and always watched the sessions thinking how nice it would be to get involved. My best friend who works for Staffordshire cricket suggested I get a team together at Whitmore to play at the Women's softball festivals. We played our first festival back in 2018 and from there we have gone from strength to strength.

Since completing my coaching course, I can now provide coaching to the Women’s Softball as well as the juniors. Being involved in the junior coaching has allowed me the opportunity to help develop a few of the over 13 girls, new to cricket. This has also then given them the opportunity to gain more experience by playing with the Women’s softball and they are now an integral part of our team. I am so proud of myself for taking the plunge into coaching. It is incredible what the club have achieved with the juniors and the Women’s Softball over the last couple of years. I am excited for our future at Whitmore and seeing our Women’s Softball team and fabulous under 6’s group grow and progress.

Shameless Women’s Softball Plug…

The Whitmore Women’s Softball team were established back in 2018. We played our first festival in May 2018. At the start we struggled to have a full team, had to borrow players at festivals and a few of us did some irregular practice sessions. Now in 2021 we have a full side going to monthly festivals, we are winning games and we have weekly training sessions with coaching where we regularly have 15 of us taking part.

We also now have several of the junior girls getting involved, I encourage any women or girls out there to come and join us, no prior cricket knowledge, skill or kit required just a desire to have some fun and make some new friends. You will hopefully develop some cricket skills along the way and then there is opportunities within the club to progress to hardball cricket if you wish.

Anyone interested in getting involved in the Women’s Softball see the website section here or any questions don’t hesitate to get in touch with me. Also if you are thinking about getting involved in helping out or coaching, just do it, you wont regret it.