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Three groups of Year 5 students from Warkworth School received some top batting and bowling tips on December 9, when visiting UK cricket coach Stephen Boyd paid his second visit to the school since arriving in NZ last month.
Boyd first visited the school on November 14, bringing letters from Year 5 pupils in his home town of Warkworth in the UK (MM, Nov 25). He was reprising a trip he’d made 20 years previously, when he spent several months in and around Warkworth as a cricket coach based at Kaipara Flats.
At that time, Boyd gave talks to students explaining the connections between the two towns, such as street names here being named after UK people and places.
He did the same thing last month, showing students photos of the English Warkworth, including its cricket ground in front of an ancient castle, and explaining that John Anderson Brown, who established Warkworth NZ in 1853, had once been headteacher at the UK village school.
After a tour around NZ, which included taking in the Black Caps-England test in Christchurch, Boyd returned to Warkworth last week to collect students’ letters to their UK counterparts and give them a quick coaching session.
He said he’d had a great trip and had caught up with several people locally who he’d met on his first visit in 2004.
“I even fielded for Kaipara Flats briefly, though I contributed nothing,” he said. “It was just so nice to be around the team, they’re a really good, solid group of lads, very good company. I would love to have played with them as a younger man.”
After teaching the Warkworth Year 5s the rudiments of batting, bowling and catching, he left for home with a large bundle of letters and the hope of connecting both sets of students online next year.
