On Saturday 2nd July, the people of Lancashire were given the opportunity to analyse sports performance in the Division's state of the art performance analysis suite located in Greenbank building. The session was run as part of the Lancashire Science Festival which ran for three days and attracted over 13,000 visitors. Led by the Division's Module Demonstrator and former Blackburn Rovers Performance Analyst Craig Lawlor, participants analysed a range of different sports including football, rugby and basketball. Craig was assisted by 3rd year Sports Coaching students Fintan O'Leary, currently a coach with Preston North End's Academy and Iain Hunter who has worked as Head Analyst at AFC Fylde for the past two and a half years.
By the end of the session participants were able to analyse video, collect statistics and present their findings to the rest of the group, giving them a taste of what it is like to be an analyst working in an elite environment. Three 45 minute sessions were run throughout the day, each session was very well attended and enjoyed by all. Here is some of the feedback from the budding analysts:
"Amazing and fantastic!!"
"Good session delivered by friendly coaches"
"It was a good experience and it was very interesting!"
The analysis suite has 10 iMacs which run the latest versions of Sportscode Elite, Gamebreaker and Studiocode, software which is used by elite sports teams all over the world. The suite is used on a regular basis in the delivery of content on the performance analysis modules which are available to students on the Sports Coaching and Sports Science programmes at the university. The suite is also available to students within the Division for use throughout the academic year. The festival was a great success and we look forward to welcoming even more visitors to next year's event!
