The island’s cricket development officer, Lee Meloy, has been named the International Cricket Council’s (ICC’s) European coach of the year. This year’s awards were billed as the most successful to date and the ICC were looking for coaching heroes who fulfilled a number of criteria, such as engaging new participants into cricket and working with and developing junior players.
Alongside his role as development officer Lee is the Head Coach of the island’s U15 side, forms part of the coaching team supporting the U17 and also senior sides. He helped to guide Jersey to inter-insular victory over Guernsey and was part of the support staff at World LeagueFour in Singapore. Not bad for someone who claims he started playing cricket relatively late and until he did ‘it was all football!”
Name: Lee Meloy
Age: 25
Sport: Cricket
What do you do: Cricket Development Officer for Jersey Cricket Board
School attended: Victoria College
Favourite ice cream flavour: Toffee
Favourite animal: Lion
Favourite food: Steak and chips.
What would you wear to a fancy dress party: Last thing I wore was a blow up horse and Jockey costume.
Favourite cricket expression: Anything from @UScricketguy on twitter.
Favourite thing about Jersey: It’s the warmest place in the British Isles. [-Ed the tourism department will love this!]
Favourite song: Ben Howard – Black Flies.
When did you start playing/coaching cricket: I started playing quite late at age ten, before then it was all football. I first started coaching at the cricket summer school when I was 16.
Where has been your favourite place in the world to play/coach cricket: This year I’ve been to St Lucia and Singapore coaching different teams, they were both amazing places for different reasons.
Where and when was the favourite moment in your career: As a player it was being part of the Jersey U19 team to first win a European tournament in 2007. For coaching, it has to be this season with the U19 team who won the same tournament this time in Essex.
What’s coming up on the cricketing calendar that we should be looking out for: Next season we will be hosting two important tournaments for our U19 and senior sides. The first will be ICC European T20 Division 1 in May and then the U19 European World Cup Qualifier where the reward for the winners will be a place in the 2016 U19 World Cup in Bangladesh.
If you weren’t working in the world of cricket, what would you be doing: Anything but sitting behind an office desk.
Do you have a tip for aspiring sportspeople?Whatever age or sport, always continue to learn and improve from your experiences, coaches and other players.
How can people get involved in cricket in Jersey: We go into almost every primary school on the island with many of them having teachers to contact who are “ambassadors” for cricket within their school. There are also lots of different clubs who play indoor, evening and weekend league cricket throughout the year that are always looking for new players.
For more information visit:
www.jerseycricketboard.co.uk
