Members Forum Minutes 1 st September 2016

Transcription

1 Members Forum Minutes 1 st 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 80 th 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.

2 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.

3 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. We ve seen here again, it wasn t ideal with them hitting 550 having put them in. It was the same policy that we had the start of the year. Yesterday morning there was a bit of dampness on the wicket and we took the gamble of trying to take early wickets and it didn t work. That happens sometimes. The pitches here are good pitches. We need a bowling attack that can be affective on very good wickets. I ll take some questions now. I will answer them as openly and honestly as I can. Member: Why was our top scorer from last season Ashwell Prince not replaced? In not doing so we are now fighting relegation. Ashley Giles: The bigger picture is important to us. Whilst over the short term that can bring us a certain amount of success, in the long term that is not going to do us any favours, because those guys will come and go. Ashwell was a fantastic servant but if Ashwell was still here or someone else, either Haseeb or Livingstone would not have played. Home grown guys coming through our system wouldn t have got a go. We are fighting relegation and hopefully we will beat relegation. It s something we ve not done before so we have to try and look for a formula whilst staying up and whilst winning tomorrow that makes us consistent and successful but over a longer period. Quick fix signings of Kolpack cricketers isn t necessarily going to do that. I am not saying we never go to overseas again because at times with the likes of Haseeb that sort of impact on you very quickly you have to act. However, we have taken some criticism for Wagner, and whilst we miss that influence and he was very good for us, there are opportunities for everyone Saqib, Bailey etc. And whilst we are not top of the league we are learning more as we go. Some of these guys will take us forward for a long time, some of them won t, but we are better informed for that. We also thought at this time of year that we would have Jimmy back with us but Jimmy is injured again which is never ideal. I look at Alviro and he is our experienced overseas player at the moment whose responsibility it is to get 1000 runs and lead our batting unit and that is what he has done very well this year. I hope that helps answer your question.

4 Member: It s a shame about the outfield. Don t have the concerts on the field anymore. You can t keep ruining the pitch. Why can t they have them in The Point? Please can we have the 4 day county game at Blackpool next year please? Chairman: Can I just comment on the concerts. In all honesty we got away with it. It was a gamble from day one on whether we took 2 back to back concerts in relative proximity to the Test Match but as I said to a group of county Chairman and the Chairman of the MCC, if somebody came to you and said we ve got 2 stars coming up at around the same time, it would be fabulous if we could have one set up for both and have them in an open air event at Emirates Old Trafford and you would get a few hundred thousand pounds for it, what would you do? The MCC Chairman said he would snap their hand off and in today s world that is what you do. Two things happened. In between the concerts it rained for 4 days on the run and the ground did suffer. After Beyoncé was here there was an awful lot more action out there and the ground looked in a terrible state when we took all the boarding up and I d like to pay respect and thanks to Matt our groundsman and his team who did a phenomenal job of getting this ground in shape for the Test Match. It wasn t perfect but it was in good shape and it was perfectly satisfactory to 2 inspections by the ECB and the wicket was rated at that time as the best they ve played on in the Test series. We took a gamble and we were very lucky because of the hard work of everybody at this Club pulling together. Member: Can you take us through the decision to release Luis Reece? Ashley Giles: Decisions are never taken likely but we have to make these decisions. We have to make the decisions on who we think is going to take us forward and they are tough decisions. I m not saying he won t go on to have success elsewhere and that is part of our job also to produce cricketers who have good careers whether it be here or elsewhere. Member: Martin Gotlieb Firstly are there any plans to release any of the other first team squad in the close season and secondly if the opportunity does arise to sign the right players either from overseas or from other counties would you consider it? Ashley Giles: Absolutely. We are always looking at strengthening the squad. We always have budgets to play with and we ve got salary caps to play with and we have to work within those limitations but if the right people are out there we will always be interested in them. I guess the frustrations for me is are there the right people out there at the moment? We will always be interested in good people coming here. That is in line with us producing our own but I think we are doing that very well. As well as making judgments on people s careers, we need to judge if they are ready now because we can give opportunities but it is still a performance environment. In terms of anyone else leaving the Club, that is a sensitive topic so I cannot talk about anyone else s employment. We have to look at what opportunities players are going to get. Member: David Smith A question on the home game against Durham at Southport I understand both Jimmy Anderson and Ben Stokes (centrally contracted players) it seems highly inequitable that Stokes was allowed to play for 4 days and Anderson 2. I understand it was probably dictated to us that that was the case. It was a really important game, it could be the one that makes a difference at the end of the season. Did we make any representation against the unfairness of it?

5 Ashley Giles: If you are asking me if we enquired as to Jimmy s availability yes. If you are asking me if I stamped my feet no. They are very individual cases so they are treated individually. In Jimmy s case it was different from Stokes because they are both starting games. It s frustrating and it could have made the difference. We are dictated to by their employers. Realistically, Jimmy possibly came back too early as it was. We are always lucky to have Jim here but those circumstances sometimes arise and that s the risk you take for having such quality. Member: Alan Chadwick: I take your half glass full approach. If you would have had Smith and Davies for a lot more this season I think we would have done a lot better, and I feel very sorry for Croft for not only having to Captain but to keep and to bat and I think it might be impacting on his game. Wicket keepers my question is about the availability of Buttler at any time. I think you have partly answered the question in that we don t have a lot of say in Buttler playing for us. Ashley Giles: We will be pushing hard for him to play the last couple of games. Unfortunately he has not played today and he has picked up an injury. You are right, to lose Alex Davies for the majority of the season was a massive blow. Tom Smith, Tom Bailey. I appreciate your comments and I appreciate everyone s support in this room. I think sometimes as a team and as a management we listen to the bad voices often too much, but believe me we are all trying to get it right. Member: Nothing was done over the winter to get another wicket keeper in. Is that not a possibility because Buttler is obviously going to be with England an awful lot of time and we ve only got the one wicket keeper and there is always a danger that there is going to be an injury. Ashley Giles: We didn t know Alex was going to be injured over the winter. He started the season for us. We thought we would see more of Jos. A young guy called Brooke Guest has been playing in the second team and it looks likely that he will play some more cricket next year. Having Tom Moores on loan was good for us, we ve again entered a young 19 year old England qualified cricketer into first class cricket and he did well. Alex across all disciplines was a massive blow. As important as these two games are we wouldn t rush Alex back as it could have set him back. The prognosis is very good and he ll be fine. Member, Roger Daniel: Still on the question of wicket keepers, as I recall Jos Buttler was playing in the IPL at the beginning of this year and I think came late to the start of the season. If my memory serves me right and that was the case, who then has the preference over the services of Jos Buttler Lancashire or the IPL? Ashley Giles: If there is an opportunity for a player to play in the IPL they are going to put it in their contracts. We are going to have to release them. So they ask for us to issue and NOC to let them play in the IPL. If we want that calibre of player we are going to have to let that happen. In this instance because he was centrally contracted it wasn t our decision anyway. The ECB wanted him to go to the IPL for experience. Whilst it is disappointing, we are blessed to have him when he is around. He was the difference last year when we won the T20. He played around 6/7 T20 matches I think. He would have played in that period when he broke his thumb. He played one of the best T20 innings I ve seen with a fractured thumb at Worcester. Member: Could I return to the possibility of the day/night fixture at Edgbaston and clarify who the decision makers will be regarding whether it will be a day/night game or not and more specifically if Lancashire are not keen to do this will that be sufficient to veto the possibility?

6 Ashley Giles: Both sides would have to be in total agreement as far as I m aware. Member: I cannot understand why we cannot have more Members sat behind the bowler s arms for our big matches/test Matches. They manage it at Lord s and at other grounds so why not here? Chairman: On County games we have to have permission from the umpires. The umpires sometimes ask both counties if they are comfortable with it. What s happened with us is that every time we have done it on a number of occasions the game has been stopped because people are getting up in the middle of the bowlers run and walking across and the umpire walking over and closing it up either before or after lunch. Member: That is a stewarding issue. Chairman: It is not a stewarding issue it s a personal issue of understanding the rules and the etiquette of cricket. Ashley Giles: From my experience I don t think they do manage it everywhere else except Lord s. All the other grounds have got very wide sight screens. A lot of the players are extremely sensitive about it as you can understand. Chairman: Please don t get the impression that we are unsympathetic to it. We will re-visit it and certainly we will try it again. Member: At the Test Match I think there were 3 rows. Daniel Gidney: For internationals we get 3 rows in front of the sight screen. We had to fight tooth and nail at every single international since I ve been at the Club. At the pre match meeting with the ECB, the match referee has tried to get that changed and we have managed to resist it on the basis that although we have had stoppages on balconies, in the last 3 years we have not had stoppages from those 3 rows in front of the sight screen, so at the moment we seem to behave ourselves brilliantly in Test Matches in terms of movement but it s a fight every time. They ask every time to try and remove that and we resist that at the moment and we keep it. Member: Could I return to the subject of wicket keeping. I don t know what is going to happen in this match but we ve got 2 matches to go after this and I think it s unfortunate that Croft has to keep wicket because we are taking out of the equation one of the best fielders on the circuit. Also we are taking out one of the best batsman we have and it s affecting him obviously. Why don t we bring this chap from the second team and let him play in those two games so that Croft can do what he does best? Ashley Giles: We ve discussed all these options and Croft is taking a bullet for the team! He will run through a brick wall for the team. He takes a lot on but for the balance of the team we all felt it was best. We are not pushing Crofty into it. Whether it is too much or not I don t know. Career wise he averages what he is averaging this year so it s not having that big effect on his performance I don t think. As I say for us to play a slightly different balanced team has at times been helpful. That s a decision we have made. Hopefully Jos will be available for the last 2 games and we will all be happy. Member: I have just bought some tickets for the Test Match in August. As a matter of interest, do you think the sales of the tickets will be fully subscribed to?

7 Justin Hopwood: We went on sale yesterday to the pre-registration group. We went all sale to all members on the 24 th. The sales numbers which I am happy to share with you have been sold to members in the first six days and 1450 were sold from 10am yesterday until first thing this morning. That compares extremely well to previous years, although this is my first season here. We are very positive, confident and hopeful. We have started earlier and started well and will keep you informed. I am always happy to update on ticket sales and where we are. Daniel Gidney: Just to add South Africa is a very exciting team. They haven t actually played here for a number of years. We have also got the last Test Match of the series against South Africa so that should be exciting. Member: Just a query on the Test Match tickets. I ve been coming for a number of years with a group of friends and I was looking through the criteria before and the number has gone down to 3 guests have I read that right? Justin Hopwood: Do you mean the guest vouchers as a member? Member: Yes Daniel Gidney: We will take your details afterwards and our team will pick that up with you. Member: Ian Wilkinson Structure of cricket in 2017, there have been stories in the paper, websites and so on that we are going to start off with one day cricket and championship cricket isn t going to start until the end of May. If that is the case the Test Match series is already in operation, we would then miss out on Jimmy Anderson who played 3 or4 games early doors. Is there anything yet that you can say of how the structure of 2017 cricket will be? Daniel Gidney: What I can say is that championship cricket will start as normal. Currently the first scheduled round of matches is due to take place on April 7 th as per normal. Ashley Giles: The good news for someone like Jimmy Anderson. I don t think they play Test Cricket after Christmas so the chances are they will have good availability at the start of the summer because there is also Champions Trophy early on in the summer so hopefully we will see a fair bit of him. Member: The way you are talking Ashley there is no doubt about Jimmy s shoulder. Obviously he was injured and then he was back and now he is injured again. You can hear the ECB saying he s got to be managed carefully i.e. he won t play for Lancashire. Is his shoulder is going to be ok for the foreseeable future or is he always going to have a problem now and have to be managed carefully i.e. reduced availability for us? When you did your summary you talked about Championship and T20, you didn t mention 50 over. I think it is fair to say the last couple of years our 50 over performances have been somewhat disappointing. Ashley Giles: I agree, sorry I should have said white ball cricket. There is a lot of focus placed on T20 nowadays but our 50 was just as inconsistent. On Jimmy, I am not a medical man but as I alluded to earlier, maybe he just came back a little too early. It is a stress related injury. As you get older you have to be managed really well. We all hope that if it is managed well now and post-christmas it won t be an on-going issue but speaking from experience and someone who retired at 34 these things can creep up on you.

8 Member: If we are going to continue to play at Southport could we possibly sort out the parking for the disabled? Also the route coming in the ground to get round to where the disabled sit is treacherous and the other thing is there isn t a decent disabled toilet, so people who are in a wheelchair will not be able to get into the disabled toilet. Anthony Mundy: There a few things from the out grounds that we need to improve on. One of them is the disabled toilets. I think that was also a problem at Blackpool. As part of the debrief of the out grounds we are going to pick up these items and improve them for next season. Parking is extremely tight at Southport as it is with other out grounds but we will take this back to the out grounds at the debrief. Member: Sue Grainger Could I just ask about the Lancashire website. I don t profess to be a wonder at working websites but I find it almost impossible to navigate my way around our website. I seem to be able to book a Christmas dinner or maybe Test Match tickets for next year but if I want to find an up-to-date score on say a second eleven game it s just not there at all. Is it a work in progress or is it completed? Daniel Gidney: Yes it is a work in progress. It is significantly enhanced from last year. I know that Tony Shaw who is on the MRG has spent quite a lot of time with Hollie going through a lot of detail on this and we are working with our developers to make those improvements, so what I would suggest is, we will get one of our team to pick up with you and we can get the details of the specific things you are struggling with. Chairman: I would like to pay thanks and respect to the away supporters that are in the room. I go to as many away matches as I can and bump into a very solid group of people and it s always a pleasure to see them. Some are here tonight but I would like to put on record how much we do appreciate that support that goes on the road for us so thank you. We have had ups and downs over the years and we have spent a lot of time trying to improve our communication with you the members. This is an example of that process. We brought into play a Members Representative Group and this evening we have Amanda Fearn, who chairs that group and she is going to take the opportunity to just say a few words and if you have any questions we d be glad to field them. MRG Update from Amanda Fearn Thank you. You ll know that the Member s Representative Group formed in April 2015 and we had our first meeting last year in June. We are initially here for 2015, 2016 and 2017 and we all volunteer our time. You will see from the notice board just how much we ve gathered, discussed, changed or found answers to that we are trying to do for the members, and of course we are those members as well. I have to thank Chris Bent for keeping our documents up to date and you ll see Chris s hard work that goes onto the notice board as well. This year alone we have had a reduction in the prices of a cup of tea, something that a lot of people mentioned to us. We ve had new discounts on food and drink and we also have discounts on merchandise in the new store as well. You will also see that we have asked for further free guest tickets and when you sign up for your 2017 membership you will now receive 3 instead of 1, so we hope that is going to be really well received. We have asked for the outdoor speakers to be turned up or down as appropriate and we are still working on that. We ve also resolved the issue of the light in the accessible toilet going out too soon so hopefully nobody is left in the dark!

9 We are working with the Club on the new website which Sue and Daniel have just spoken about. We know there is a lot to do. I would also like to express my thanks to Tony Shaw who has been really instrumental in this. He s had a lot of meetings and spent a lot of time with the Club specifically Hollie and Justin. Everybody has had an input in the team and it s really fantastic. We are all different categories and we have two Thunderbolt Members as well. So if any of you come here with your families they are not being forgotten. We can do things for them too. We are here for the Members. We will do everything we can but at the same time we would like to express our thanks to Daniel and his team who have been really supportive so far and have given up a lot of their time and have listened to us. I would also like to say thank you to Phil Johnston, he and I speak regularly and we have resolved a lot of issues. You can also contact us by using the Members address which Phil and I deal with on a regular basis. If you have any questions I d be happy to take them. Chairman: Thank you Amanda. Closing Comments Daniel Gidney: Message from Malcolm Lorimer. We have a play coming up in the Pavilion during our next match on September 14 th. A play talking about an extraordinary cricketer, Sidney Barnes, who has one of the best strike rates for an England bowler, for his personality I understand he didn t play that many games as he fell out with everybody but an exceptional bowler and a great story and it s great for Lancashire. I would like to thank the Lancashire Heritage Group and Malcolm for putting this on and it s a really good innovation. Only 60 people can come first come first served and it s only 3.50 which I think is exceptional value. Chairman: The third annual members Christmas function will take place in December. Last year was a great success with Dusty Miller from Derbyshire. We haven t got a final date as yet. We will communicate that to you as soon as we can. In the meantime can I thank you for your attention, your interest and your support. You are a very important part of the family and we really appreciate the help and support you give us. Thank you very much indeed.