Tony Potter appointed as LCB Women’s Senior Squad Head Coach

The LCB are pleased to announce the appointment of Tony Potter as the LCB Senior Women’s Head Coach.

Tony, who has been the County Girls Under 13 Head Coach since 2005, has successfully lead the squad to 2 National Finals in his tenure. He is also a Level 3 Staff Coach and currently the LCB Coach Education Manager.

Tony Potter said: “I’m delighted to take on this new challenge, as I do know it will be completely different from coaching the Under 13 Girls. However one advantage that I do have is that I know quite a lot of them already from when they were with me at Under 13 Level and also from going on the tour to South Africa in 2010. As far as hopes and aspirations are concerned I have only got one target in mind at the moment and that is for the squad to achieve promotion from Division 3 to Division 2, if at all possible, next season.”

Paul Bryson, Cricket Development Manager with the remit of development of Women's and Girls' Cricket, commented: “Having been involved as Head Coach of the Under 13 Girls team for a number of years now, it was felt the time was right for Tony to move up to Senior 1st X1 Squad, based on his Coaching experience and knowledge of the players involved. I wish him every success in his endeavours to get Lancashire promoted to Division 2.”

Stephen Titchard, Performance Manager, added: “Tony will not only bring extensive coaching experience to this role but a real passion to further develop and challenge this group of players. I am delighted that he has accepted the position. The senior women's team is the premier squad within the women and girls system.”

Tony Potter’s coaching profile

Tony did his first Coaching Award in 1968 whilst he was at college training to be a teacher. It was the MCC Coaching Award and because he was so busy playing for the next 20 years or so he only did a bit of coaching at his club – Clifton CC. Between 1989 and 1995 he went through the then award system Level 1, Senior and Advanced and in 2000 he was one of the first to go through the new Level 3 Award. In this time, although teaching full time in primary school, he found time to coach in the Under 16 County Festival as well as becoming more involved in club coaching and 1 to 1 work.

When he started working for the LCB in 2005 he was invited to look after the U13 Girls County Squad which he’s now done for the last 5 seasons.

As Tony grew up and learnt the game he was never coached by anybody and had to gain his skills by just watching others. This though is also a very useful way to learn but he sometimes wonders what could have been if he had received some quality coaching as a youngster. But because coaches were few and far between then, this is true of a lot of people of his generation.

David Lloyd is Tony’s favourite cricket coach because of his infectious enthusiasm for the game and for the fact that he has shown how much fun you can get from learning how to play and improve your cricket.

Tony continued to say: “The most enjoyment you can get out of coaching is to see players improve maybe partly as a result of your efforts. I’m pretty sure that you would get that same answer from many coaches. The biggest difference between teaching and coaching is that when you are teaching, the children have to be there whether they like it or not, but when you are coaching then they are there because they want to be and are all full of enthusiasm to learn.  I also think that seeing a squad come together and gel as a unit, both on and off the field can be really rewarding.”