LCC are delighted to offer their congratulations to Sean Ferrie (left) on his recent appointment to the newly created post of West Lothian Community Cricket Coach. Sean, 23, hails from Stirling and has a strong background in both playing and coaching. As a qualified Level 2 coach, We are excited about the benefits that Sean's appointment will bring to the club and the district.

Sean has been coaching since 2005, helping out with the Stirling County kwik cricketers before successfully completing the ECB Level 1 Coaching Course in 2007 and upgrading to Level 2 in 2010. He has worked with the Stirling junior setup and the Forth Valley regional squads, as well as visiting numerous primary and secondary schools to deliver sessions in the past five years.

A keen cricketer himself, Sean is a middle order batsman for Stirling County 1st XI. He began playing cricket at the age of 7 and worked his way through the youth system and adult teams before making his SNCL debut in 2005. He also captained Stirling County 2nd XI for the first half of the 2011 season before returning to the 1st XI for the remainder of the year.

The Community Coach post has been funded by cricketWestLothian (a group consisting of the 3 main clubs in West Lothian whose aim is to develop cricket in the region), West Lothian Council, Cricket Scotland and sportScotland.

Sean's appointment finally answers crickets very own West Lothian question, that has existed since the creation of the City of Edinburgh Cricket Development Officer effectively replaced the East of Scotland coaches, leaving West Lothian as a black hole, unsupported by the governing bodies in coaching. Thanks to an enormous amount of hard work over the last 15 months or so, an idea seeded by LCC has come to fruition, and will hopefully continue to grow over the coming years.

Chairman of cricketWestLothian, Iain Murdoch, stated "I am absolutely delighted that from an initial idea back in 2010 and the positive support from both Andy Smyth (West Lothian Council sports Development Team) and Steve Paige (Cricket Scotland Head of Community Development) we have received since the inception that a long time objective of mine has finally been realised, I strongly believe that there is a pool of untouched cricket talent in the region and Sean's enthusiasm and coaching skills will unlock this. I would also like to give recognition to Rob Mildren at Fauldhouse VCC, whose efforts in identifying and obtaining funding avenues has been invaluable."  

Sean will be delivering taster sessions in primary schools throughout the West Lothian area in the coming months as well as providing support to the 3 clubs.  He will also be responsible for helping the clubs in setting up their support structure to deal with the potential increase in youth participation.   He will be around the clubs over the spring and summer, so lets make him very welcome and give him our full support in what we are trying to achieve.