New coach - Mark Grenville

Our new coach 

The Moonee Valley Cricket Club is pleased to announce Mark  as our coach for the 2018/19 season.
Mark has played at high levels in the West Indies, England and Australia, and has also played in the United States and Canada along his cricket journey, which has netted him more than 12,000 runs and 1300 wickets.
Growing up in the West Indies, he played in the Guyana Under 19s and also played 14 first class matches for Guyana in the Red Stripe Cup/Shell Shield - the equivalent of Australia's Sheffield Shield.
In announcing the appointment, Moonee Valley President Charlie Walker said that Mark will bring enthusiasm, skill and great coaching know-how to our club teams across all ages.
"Mark has Level 1 and Level 2 Australian coaching certificates, which will help him share his skill and experience across all our grades."
He is excited about being able to further improve the players in their late teens and early 20s in our higher grades, and also assist in developing our junior grade skills.
Mark is now an Australian citizen. He has been in Guyana for the past year doing voluntary youth coaching - a promise he made to return and help out when he was at the height of his own career - and returns to Australia in time for our pre-season training.
He believes players need to enjoy training, and promises a varied and interesting program to ensure we get the best out of our sessions.
He was Guyana Cricketer of the Year in 1986.
Playing for Guyana, he counted Test stars Roger Harper, Colin Croft, Carl Hooper and Roy Fredericks among his teammates.
His opponents were no less daunting, lining up against a plethora of stars including Sir Viv Richards, Phil Simmonds, Richie Richardson, Ian Bishop, Malcolm Marshall, Curtly Ambrose, Courtney Walsh, Winston Benjamin and Shivnarine Chanderpaul.
The standard didn;t get much easier when Mark played Minor Counties cricket in England in the 1980s and 1990s, with teammates and opponents including Australian captain Mark Taylor, Chris Matthews, Darren Berry, Chris Old and Madan Lal.
Mark moved to Australia in the mid 90s and coached and captain-coached teams in the southern suburbs of Melbourne, including Chelsea in the old VTCA.
His best bowling performance is 9/28 against Honley Cricket Club in England and his best batting is 175 against Guyana Police Force in Guyana.
Mark takes over the Moonee Valley role from our coach of the previous two seasons, Lou Raffaele, who led us to a Grand Final in 2017/18 and has now signed on to coach East Coburg.
Lou, as a past premiership coach and 100-game player at Moonee Valley, is part of the fabric of our club and is always welcome to visit. We thank him for his support and contribution.