Woodlands CC legend Chris Brice will continue to play an important role at Yorkshire next season.
The spinner has been instrumental in the Bradford side’s incredible run of success over the past decade.
From 2015 onwards, the Oakenshaw-based outfit have won four Bradford Premier League Premier Division titles, four Priestley Cups, two Heavy Woollen Cups and two Yorkshire Premier League play-off crowns.
Brice has been at the club for all of that, and Yorkshire recognised what he could bring to the county, so hired him for their Northern Diamonds set up.
And despite the Diamonds’ time in the sport ending a few months ago, Brice has stayed on as part of the new Yorkshire Women’s side.
He is now their assistant head coach, while Rich Pyrah will lead the team, the former Cleckheaton and Yorkshire ace rejoining the club in August 2024 having been sacked by the county three years earlier in the wake of the Azeem Rafiq scandal.
Brice is not just the returning Pyrah’s assistant however, as the Woodlands man is also now leading the girls’ Academy programme at the club.
Last month, Yorkshire announced their Academy and Emerging Players Programme intake ahead of 2025, totalling 45 players.
This includes young Cleckheaton speedster Bradley Sylvester.
Those players will be split into four groups; the boys’ Academy and EPP and the girls’ Academy and EPP.
James Martin will act as the head of the county’s performance pathway, while the boys’ Academy set-up, which includes Sylvester, will be led by Tom Craddock.
Mark Harrison will lead the girls’ EPP programme, with the hope of bringing players through that Brice can mentor further in the Academy set-up.
Jack Mousley will take charge of the boys’ EPP programme, while below that quartet are five high-performance support coaches.
They are Bilal Anjam, Mohammad Azharullah, John Major, Ben Silver and Jared Warner.
The programmes are already paying off, with five youth players having been handed senior professional contracts since this summer alone, in Jawad Akhtar, Noah Kelly, Erin Thomas, Alex Wade and Maddie Ward.
