Willis Dill has done a shrewd piece of business just three weeks after taking over as Western Stars Sports Club president by persuading Wendell Smith to become the club’s new cricket coach.

Smith led St David’s to three league titles in his four years as coach — last year winning the Premier Division and Belco Cup — but stood down at the end of the season for health reasons.

However, a phone call from Dill a few days ago before a meeting with him and club official Gershon Gibbons yesterday, persuaded Smith to take up the challenge of coaching the First Division side.

Dill said that he was keen to see the cricket programme restored to former glory. Watching the World Cup convinced Smith that he needed another coaching challenge and the Western Stars president urged him to take on the role at St John’s Road.

“It’s not even about the money, I’ve taken a pay cut with this job, but as you get older the satisfaction comes from making a significant impact with your presence,” Smith said.

“[Dill] visited me at my school and told me Western Stars were looking for a coach and named a few people they had thought about and asked me would I consider coaching Western Stars.

“I told him that when I read his story in The Royal Gazette it sparked my interest when he mentioned how Western Stars’ football programme was thriving, a junior programme with multiple teams, but that one of his aims was to revitalise the cricket programme.

“That was last Friday and I told him I would give it a week to think about it. What really made me consider it was the fact that it is extremely close to my place of employment and within 15 minutes from my home.

“One of my major reasons for stepping down at St David’s was the travelling. I was literally risking my life, because five or six times I found myself fatigued from working and then driving to St David’s and starting to fall asleep.

“That happened for about two years. It didn’t matter if I was in the car or riding my bike.

“Coming back home was never a problem because of the adrenalin from coaching and doing drills.”

Smith is regarded as one of the top coaches in club cricket, having transformed St George’s into a formidable team in the mid-1980s as captain and coach.

He was also Gus Logie’s assistant coach of the national team in 2005 when the team qualified for the World Cup. Ahead of the 2014 season he said that it would be his last with St David’s as he wanted to return to St George’s to help their programme, but now he is heading to Western Stars instead.

“When you’re coaching a team — and it happened when I was at St George’s — you get to a point when it is time to walk away and go into another programme,” said Smith, who will meet with players on Sunday morning at 9am at West Pembroke School.

“In four years [at St David’s] we won the league three times, the first year and the last two years, and last year we finally won the Belco Cup, but we lost the Eastern Counties and I caught a lot of ribbing for that, losing the County Cup to Cleveland and my brother [Clay].

“Besides being at a club in proximity, the challenge of coaching a team where your coaching skills should make a significant difference, that’s appealing to me.

“You have a team that is not in the Premier Division but knocking on the door two years in a row to get promotion. That’s a huge challenge but also an opportunity to impact a programme.”

Added Smith: “They have some progressive executives, Willis Dill and Gershon Gibbons and a history of people like Calvin Blankendal and Charles Brown. At one time they were a powerhouse, players like Arnold [Manders], Jeff [Richardson], the Brangman brothers [Gary and Allan], Andre Manders, and like the president said they would like to regain their status.”

Dill tasked himself with finding the new coach and is delighted to secure Smith’s services. “It’s going to take a few years to get it back to where it used to be, but right now we want to insure that we have one of the best people in the country,” he said.

“Wendell is no slouch when it comes to cricket, he’s very well qualified, a former Bermuda captain, a former Cup Match captain and is one of the top cricketers Bermuda has ever had.

“We met again today with Gershon Gibbons, our treasurer, and now that we’ve got him on board, hopefully the programme will start to move. I’ve been the one spearheading this move to get a coach, my executives have been kept informed of what I’ve been doing. My committee is elated to say the least.”