Choosing where to train is mostly a question about people. Facilities matter, but a bowling machine does not tell you why your front arm collapses. A coach does.
So rather than list features, here is an honest introduction to the team at Hertfordshire and Essex Cricket Centre, the levels we run, and who each one is built for.
The coaches
Luke Humphrey leads the centre. He started coaching in 1998, joined the family business full-time in 2002, and by 2003 was one of the youngest ECB Level 3 coaches in the country. He spent eight years with Hertfordshire County Cricket Association as an age-group coach, Emerging Players Programme head coach and Performance Director, and has worked with the England Lions as Lead Batting Coach for the England Talent Tests at Loughborough. In 2010 he was selected for the ECB Level 4 Master Coach Award, and he now holds a Level 4 specialism in batting and spin bowling. He also runs the National Fast Bowling Academy here at the centre.
Brad Oakes is a Level 3 coach working towards his Level 4 specialist award. He coaches across both the boys’ and girls’ pathways at Essex County Cricket Club, as co-lead of the Under-14 county age group squad and lead coach for the primary age group programme, alongside a decade of one-to-one coaching. He played for Hertfordshire up to Under-18 level and still turns out for Sawbridgeworth Cricket Club.
Dom Clutterbuck began coaching with Oxford MCCU at university and spent two years coaching the Oxford University women’s team. He joined HECC in 2022, leading summer camps before moving onto the pathway programmes, and is Director of Coaching and 1st XI captain at Bishop’s Stortford Cricket Club, where he also heads up the women’s first and second teams.
Liam Smith came into cricket coaching through the ECB’s All Stars and Dynamos programmes at Bengeo CC, where he built a colts section that now runs from Under-9s through to Under-14s, including a girls’ team. He won the Hertfordshire Game Changer award for his contribution to the game and works across our junior, emerging and senior academies as well as the Spin Academy.
Adam Pearce is a Level 2 coach and a Loughborough graduate in Sport and Exercise Psychology, a specialism now built into the programmes we deliver. Will Lambert has been part of the team since 2018, works with our junior development squads and academies, and is lead cricket coach for KS3 and KS4 at The Bishop’s Stortford High School.
Full profiles for every coach are on our About Us page.
The levels, and who each one suits
The pathway is deliberately continuous. A player who starts at five can stay with the same coaching team until they leave for university.
| Programme | Who it is for | What it focuses on |
|---|---|---|
| Junior Development Squad | School Years 1 to 6 | First contact with the game, core movement skills, enjoyment |
| Senior Development Squad | School Years 7 to 9 | Building technique and game understanding |
| Junior Academy | Ages 8 to 11 | Technical foundations for players who want more than club training |
| Emerging Academy | Ages 12 and 13 | The bridge into performance cricket, often alongside county pathways |
| Senior Academy | Ages 14 and over | Performance standards, match scenarios and physical preparation |
| One-to-one and small group | Any age, any level | A single identified fault, worked on properly |
| National Fast Bowling Academy | Selected quick bowlers | Specialist pace development |
| Spin Academy | Selected spinners | Led by former England bowler Peter Such |
If you are unsure where a player fits, that is normal. Most parents are. We would rather watch someone bowl for ten minutes and place them accurately than guess from a form. Details of every programme sit on our academy and development squad pathway page.
Younger children who are not ready for structured coaching are often better served by the ECB’s Dynamos Cricket for eight to eleven year olds first, and we are happy to say so.
Why players choose HECC
The coaching is genuinely qualified. Every coach here is ECB qualified with a current ECB DBS and safeguarding training. The team spans Level 2 through to Level 4, which means a beginner and a county hopeful can both be matched to the right person rather than the only person available.
It is a cricket centre, not a sports hall. Five purpose-built indoor lanes, bowling machines, automatic feeders and proper run-ups. No badminton lines on the floor, no borrowed equipment.
You can see what you are doing. Video analysis turns coaching feedback into something visible. Watching your own action back is usually the moment a technical point finally lands.
Injuries get handled properly. Integrated physiotherapy sits alongside the coaching, which matters most for fast bowlers carrying workload through a long season.
We work with the county game. Our coaches hold roles at Essex County Cricket Club, Bishop’s Stortford CC, Sawbridgeworth CC and local schools, so players get an accurate picture of what the next level asks for.
The season never stops. Being indoors means a wet February evening looks exactly like a dry one.
Where to find us
Hertfordshire and Essex Cricket Centre is at Tharbies Farm, Sawbridgeworth, CM21 0LL, sitting right on the county border. We are a few minutes from Bishop’s Stortford, close to Harlow, Hertford, Ware and Epping, and straightforward to reach from the M11 and the Cambridge to London line.
We are open seven days a week, with daytime lane bookings available in advance and evening sessions through the week.
If you know what you want to work on, book a lane or ask us about one-to-one coaching. If you are still deciding, call 01279 724782 or email enquiries@heccsport.com and we will talk it through honestly, including telling you if a different programme suits better. Start by meeting the team you would be training with.