THE Gloucestershire Cricket Board (GCB) will coach in more secondary schools than ever before thanks to new funding from the Chance to Shine charity.

The partnership will allow GCB coaches to deliver over 1,400 hours of cricket across more than 40 secondary schools.

The scheme includes coaching sessions, competitions, teacher training and young leaders’ courses.

In addition to the secondary programme the GCB will continue to deliver more than 1,800 hours of coaching to 84 primary schools through its Chance to Shine primary scheme.

GCB projects and programmes manager Chris Munden said: “This funding means we can deliver our biggest and most comprehensive schools programme ever.

“In previous years our main focus has been on getting primary school pupils interested in cricket. While this is still important, the new funding means we are can support young players’ development all the way through until they leave school.

“We hope this will encourage them to keep playing and enjoying cricket and stop the national trend of players dropping out of cricket in their late teens.”

The 2015 Chance to Shine primary programme is made up of 22 projects, feeding into 32 different clubs.

The award-winning Cotswold East project, incorporating Fairford, Lechlade and Poulton CC, is again on the programme along with Tetbury CC.

Cricklade CC are new to the list this season.