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Championship-winning Yorkshire coach receives Leeds Beckett honorary award
Martyn, who has been instrumental in Yorkshire County Cricket Club’s recent County Championship success, was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Sport on Thursday 28 July.
Speaking before his graduation ceremony, Martyn said: “Receiving this award is a real highlight of my career, following a great tradition of individuals before me is a fantastic feeling and I’m very proud.”
Offering guidance to the graduating students, he continued: “The best advice I can give for their careers is don’t have any regrets! We often say to our players, let’s not be saying at the end of the season, ‘if only’. For any young person, be full of desire and do everything you can to make a success of, whatever you choose to pursue.”
In a playing career for Yorkshire spanning 17 seasons, Martyn, an opening batsman, scored 21,161 first class runs, with a high score of 274 not out, and is one of only 15 men to have scored more than 18,000 first-class runs for Yorkshire. His haul of 41 Yorkshire centuries in first-class cricket is bettered only by Geoffrey Boycott, post-the Second World War, earning him a place amongst Yorkshire’s great players.
After finishing his distinguished playing career, Martyn was appointed Director of Professional Cricket at Yorkshire in 1997, before being appointed Head Coach at Durham in 2001. He returned to Yorkshire in 2007 as Director of Cricket and, in 2012, instigated the club’s coaching restructure ahead of the county championship season, which saw Jason Gillespie and Paul Farbrace arrive at Headingley Carnegie as first and second team coaches respectively.
Martyn played a significant role in Yorkshire’s LV= County Championship back-to-back title success in 2014 and 2015, leading them to a first County Championship title for 13 years in 2014 and the county’s first consecutive titles since 1968 in 2015.
Leeds Beckett University Chancellor, Sir Bob Murray CBE, said: “In recent years Yorkshire have enjoyed stellar success, winning back-to-back County Championships with style. Martyn has been at the heart of this success, instilling confidence and belief into their side and ensuring that nothing is left to chance.”