The PCA Award 2015 Personal Development Scholarships Derbyshire wicketkeeper Tom Poynton, Somerset batsman James Hildreth, Gloucestershire seamer Liam Norwell, Sussex pair Mike Yardy and Mark Davis and the former Warwickshire off-spinner Maurice Holmes have been awarded Professional Cricketers’ Association Personal Development Scholarships. The scholarships were introduced by the PCA in 2013 to find and reward the most proactive members, past and present, on or off the pitch, in the area of Personal Development. The initiative seeks to incentivise past members who have moved on to new career pathways as well as encouraging current players to plan and prepare for their future off the pitch. Poynton and Hildreth were winners in the Current Players Personal Development category, Norwell and Yardy won Newcomers Personal Development Scholarships and Davis, the former Sussex off-spinner who is now club coach at the county, and Holmes were winners in the Past Players Personal Development category. All six will each receive a scholarship of £ 1,000 towards Personal Development course funding, resources of their choice or to reimburse costs already incurred. Poynton’s busy year of Personal Development activity began after he was ruled out of the entire 2014 season by leg injuries which he sustained in a car accident in which his father, Keith, tragically died. He spent most of last year working in Derbyshire’s commercial department where he managed the Cricket Derbyshire India Club, project managed the club golf day and helped to deliver the Cricket Derbyshire Foundation Healthy Hearts Campaign. Poynton also purchased a stake in the Yolo Food Company, a start-up business, worked as sponsorship liaison manager of Briggs of Burton – the company where his father was a director – and was invited to be part of the Mayor of Derby’s Charity Committee this year. ” 2014 will be a defining year for me. That’s the way I have got to see it. I could sit here and cry and wallow in missing my father,” Poynton said. ” But time keeps moving on. As soon as it happened I looked at how I could use it as motivation and a drive. ” I know that my Dad would be proud of me but equally it’s doing it for myself and wanting to honour his memory and legacy. ” That’s what my drive is with it. I looked at a few quotes and I saw one that is very poignant: Out of your greatest fear comes your greatest growth. ” I feel that I have grown and become 55 when I am 25 from the experiences that I have had in the past year.” Norwell trained as a barista at the Extract Coffee Company in Bristol last year and has ambitions to run his own coffee shop in the future. He has also had work experience at the Boston Tea Party and is now studying on a business course at the online Smarta Business School. ” Winning a PCA Scholarship means a lot. It’s not something I have done since school. I was quite far outside my comfort zone so to get myself to do it and being one of the winners it feels really rewarding,” Norwell said. “I put myself outside my comfort zone and forced myself to do it. It’s been rewarding and I learned a lot from it.” Hildreth completed an MSc in Sports Psychology at Cardiff Metropolitan University last year and is due to start a postgraduate diploma conversion course in psychology at Winchester University later this year. He is also completing his ECB Level Three coaching qualification and has had work sports psychology wok experience at the Crescent Clinic in Taunton. ” If I can start something earlier on then it will smooth that transition so that I can go into another job relatively smoothly rather than just get to the end of my cricket career and think: what do I do now?” Hildreth said ” I wanted to get something in place before that day comes. I would hate to come to the end of my cricket career and to have just been focused on cricket, to come to the end of it and think I have got nothing behind my name other than just being a cricketer. How far does that get you in the outside world? I’m not sure, but I wanted something else.” Yardy is also hoping to become a sports psychologist when he finishes playing and is in the first year of a degree in the subject at Chichester University. The former England international also coaches the university cricket team and has done charity work with Mind and Time to Change to help raise awareness of mental health. ” The university are very understanding of my commitments away from university and Sussex have been understanding the other way as well,” Yardy said. ” It’s working OK at the moment I find sometimes it’s nicer to be busier. Everything is planned out for you. ” Sometimes if you have got too much time on your hands you are thinking too much. This way it activates the mind and you come to everything feeling more refreshed.” Davis has just completed a two year Executive MBA in Sports Management postgraduate degree at Loughborough University which he passed with a distinction. ” It’s given me so much confidence. I am very confident now in my ability. When you don’t have anything behind you,you possibly think: can I do something else after cricket and if I stopped my coaching career can I do something else?” Davis said. ” I now know that I can because I have developed myself and got a lot of confidence. ” It’s given me the ability to be a better coach because I am more confident in myself and what I can do. I feel I can hold my own in any environment whether it’s cricket or business alongside very different types of people.” Holmes, who was released by Warwickshire at the end of the 2011 season, spent two years studying at the University of Law in Birmingham from which he graduated with a first class degree. He is now training to be a barrister at a top chambers in London having been offered one of only 400 pupillages that were on offer across England and Wales. Holmes intends to put his PCA Scholarship money towards the cost of purchasing his barrister’s gown and wig. ” I thought it was quite an apposite use of the funds. It’s like being awarded your county cap in cricket,” Holmes said. ” They are symbolic items that one will treasure throughout a career and I thought it would be nice to have purchased them with the money from the PCA Scholarship. ” It’s a nice link between my careers and I will remember the support from the cricket community.” The PCA Personal Development Scholarships were judged by Angus Porter, the PCA Chief Executive, Jason Ratcliffe, the PCA Assistant Chief Executive, Ian Thomas, the PCA National Personal Development Manager and Charlie Mulraine, one of the six-strong team of PCA Personal Development Managers. ” In the second year of running the PCA Personal Development Scholarship Awards, we were extremely proud of the 20 quality applications we received,” said Thomas. ” It is a fantastic indication of the development culture the PCA is aiming to create amongst our members. ” Statistics are showing how current players strongly believe having a Personal Development plan is aiding personal performance, lessening performance-based anxiety and increasing confidence in many areas of life.” {{ak_sharing}}
