Just before Christmas we were delighted to hear that Kieron Ferrary had been recognised for his performances in Kuwait and had been named as one of GBC’s Sports Awards 2010 candidates. His nomination read:

“Kieron has worked incredibly hard this year, combining a demanding Air Traffic Control job with training several times per week this autumn ready for the Kuwait tournament in the World Cricket League. He combines playing duties with captaining GCC in the weekend league and is due to complete his UKCC Level Two Coach Award to help bring through another generation of young cricketers in the New Year.

Kieron had an outstanding personal tournament last month, taking over as the vice-captain and keeping wicket by the final round of matches. Besides two half-centuries he completed Gibraltar’s first ever century in international competition, and ended up as third highest run scorer in the tournament. He is very much a player for the future and, as he develops, he will no doubt take on fresh responsibilities as his leadership skills improve to match his game skills.”

Other good news sees congratulations go to Matt Hunter who has been selected to attend the Emerging Players’ Programme in March on the back of some very good performances both locally and with the Gibraltar team in Kuwait.

Congratulations must also go to Mark Gomez and Simon Dumas who will be travelling to the Centre of Excellence at La Manga in April, along with Tim Reoch who will accompany them to carry out further coach development with the ICC Europe team.

Meanwhile Mark Bacarese is currently in Scotland beginning his UKCC3 “Head Coach” award. Chris Porter, ICC Regional Development Officer who is overseeing the course, reflected on the importance of this course in terms of coach development in a press release: 'Overall it is a great opportunity for coaches from all over Europe to attend this course. The course itself is a world respected course and gives coaches the opportunity to develop their coaching skills. 19 European Coaches are attending this Level 3 course which is a great achievement.

Mark returns to Gibraltar this weekend ready to carry out practical taskbook work which will consolidate the lessons learned in Scotland. He will travel back to commence module three in early April. The course itself takes several months to complete and Gib Cricket will offer him every support in terms of time and opportunity in order for him to maximise his learning experience and bring the benefits back to our players.