Members Forum Minutes 1St September 2016
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Members Forum Minutes 1st September 2016 Chairman Introduction and Update The Chairman introduced Members to the panel that consisted of: Daniel Gidney, CEO Anthony Mundy, Operations Director Justin Hopwood, Sales & Marketing Director Amanda Fearn, Chair of the Members’ Representative Group Ashley Giles, Head Coach and Cricket Director The Club is in a good position overall. The commercial areas are doing OK but it has got tougher, there is obviously an element in business of people holding back a little until they find out more about what is going to happen and how the economy is going to run, are interest rates going to change etc. That is very important to us as an awful lot of money that is spent here is personal money and with savings rates not being what we would like them to be that is not helping. Overall we are in decent shape. We had the most phenomenal function in The Point on Saturday night for a leading family in the area, an 80th birthday party and the cabaret was Kylie Minogue and Ronan Keating. The event went absolutely brilliantly. It’s the largest private function since The Point opened. Manchester United are with us again this season so those numbers are up again. As far as cricket is concerned (not here but the way cricket is going) I’ve mentioned on numerous occasions the concern that everybody has with Test Match attendances. The Pakistan Test Match here turned out to be very good but it was a hard sell. Correspondingly the T20 that is coming up next week has had phenomenal attraction and is a sell out and should be a very good game. We now of course are at the stage where the South African tickets for next year are being sold and that should be a tremendous series. The hotel as you can see is progressing well and is on time and on budget. The future of cricket, T20, county cricket, 50 over game continues to be very much in the melting pot with the ECB. A massive amount of work is going on with a major aim to find a product and a program/tournament, a family affair that will help to sustain county cricket. A fundamental part of our county cricket is to bring our young community players through and it’s coming to fruition. The T20 programme we hope will mirror the successful programmes in the rest of the world such as The Big Bash in Australia and to some extent the IPL in India and to an even lesser extent the Caribbean programme. If we get the design right and if the ECB get the product right it should be a winner for us. The resources from a programme of that nature will, and I’m speaking very much from Lancashire’s perspective, because I don’t have this information, help to retain 18 county cricket clubs which is what we want to do. It is common knowledge that some of the clubs that are in financial difficulty and with Test matches declining in terms of attendance, the danger is that the English Cricket Board support (financial support for County cricket) may well deteriorate over years to come. There will still be of course in 2019 an Ashes Test here which will be absolutely brilliant and at other stadiums throughout the country but the others, West Indies, Pakistan and one or two others are starting to be quite difficult for everyone. There is a great deal of work being done, there is a recognition that that work must bear fruit and we will have more news for you as we go along. Hopefully before the end of the year. I am open to questions. Anything that you have generally on the Club followed by Ashley. Member Q&A with the Panel Member: Keith Fenton – Can you confirm what is happening with the last match of the season at Warwickshire? There is an article suggesting it might be a day/night game. Has any decision been made and what is the Club’s position in that? Ashley Giles – We have not spoken seriously about it and at the moment I don’t have a great deal of interest in an experiment in what could be a very important game for us. So at the moment no interest. Whether that changes in the next couple of weeks I don’t know, we will have to have conversations about that. At the moment it is a county championship game and we need to get it right. Chairman – It is obviously not something we want to do. Member: Dave Lloyd – In the Telegraph they analysed county cricket and the implications of franchise cricket etc. and it actually said that we had voted for it becoming Manchester. This is Lancashire County Cricket Club, we love it and we want it to stay that way. We don’t want to be parochial and just be called Manchester. What is the latest situation? Chairman – First of all I think a franchise is just a description that is being tagged with the IPL and then used for similar occasions or tournaments around the world. The only true franchise is in India. My personal opinion is that there won’t be one anywhere else and I don’t think there will be a franchise tournament in the UK. When I first came here, the first game I played here was for Manchester Cricket Club - we were both Lancashire County and Manchester Cricket Club. Coincidentally and purely from a pro-active basis we decided a number of years ago that we would try and do something with Manchester Cricket Club and we found that we still owned it. But it might be that at some time in the future we could have an academy team or a junior team that plays as Manchester. There are no plans here at the moment to have Manchester Cricket Club. Ashley Giles – If we go back to the first members forum of the year when we talked about hopes for the season, firstly the T20 to replicate what we did last year which we know was a magical year for the Club and for the team. To consolidate a position in Division One was crucial whilst blooding some of our youngsters, giving them opportunities and experience at the highest level in county cricket and consistent performances. I am not going to gloss over it, T20 was a great disappointment to us as a team and certainly to me as the Head Coach of that team. Incredibly inconsistent, we didn’t win two games in a row until the last two games of the competition and we just weren’t good enough. Saying that we finished in fifth place in the group, two points off where we were last year when we went on to win it. Given our inconsistencies and how poorly we played at times, we were close to actually going to the later stages. So that was a big disappointment. Right now we are still in that scrap in Division One. Members Forum Minutes 01.09.16 You’d hope we stay in Division One and put an end to our yo-yoing up and down into Division Two. That has to be our real focus, and we are aware as anyone that there is still a lot to be done towards the end of this season and we are all working hard towards that. At the same time if we look from a glass half full perspective, we’ve had an opportunity to really blood some of our youngsters this year so the progress that Haseeb has made has been incredible, given that it was his first full year. Liam Livingstone who I didn’t really predict would play a part at the start of the year, or certainly moving into 2016, has played all forms consistently for us and has grown, now batting 3. At the same time we’ve been able to blood the youngsters Parkinson, Saqib, now Jones opening the batting today because Procter was ill. I’m not sure if there has been a younger opening partnership for Lancashire. It’s not always ideal, we might be pushing guys a bit ahead of their time but we are giving them great opportunities, so I’m very pleased with that. So there has been some disappointments among the squad, some players have not really stepped up to the mark this year and we need to put that right for the coming season. We also always have an eye on recruitment, and there will be added pressures now. People are already talking about Haseeb playing for England which you just can’t make contingency for in his first year. I said at the start of this season within 4 years he would play for England, well now it could be within 4 months and that’s a bit of a shock to everyone. We are very close to signing our T20 player for next year. I can’t name him until the contract is signed but you will be very pleased. The areas I think we’ve done well on – I think we have scored enough runs, I think we’ve taken some criticism for not making enough runs. Haseeb has got over 1000 runs, Petersen over 1000 runs, Procter has had a good season almost 900. That’s ok. In my experience in successful championship teams you need that with everyone else chipping in. Our problem has probably been bowling sides out and certainly at home.