By JMB
March 20 2007

In the fourth Regan Responds interview, Yorkshire Chief Executive, Stewart Regan talks about cricket matters and more. In the second of two parts, the questions continued on the subject of the plans to redevlop the Headingley Carnegie Stadium...

Members approved the outline proposals for the Carnegie Pavilion Complex at the AGM on 17th March. Are you happy that the plans do not include any extra seating capacity and that the Cricket Club will be required to payLeeds Met to lease back that part of the complex which they will use during the season?

 

There are plans for good quality corporate and members seating as part of the development. The proposals consist of a tiered pavilion of approximately 4,000 sq. metres with just over a thousand square metres exclusively for the use of The Yorkshire County Cricket Club all year round.  The rest of the plan will include teaching and student accommodation which will include space that can double up for internationals as corporate areas, media centres, journalist areas and more.

 

The structure of the deal will be that Yorkshire County Cricket Club will own the freehold of the land on which the pavilion sits and we will then be granting those rights back to Leeds Met for a period of 99-years, leasing back the ability for them to build the building on a 99-year lease and having developed that building they will then lease back to us our exclusive space. It’s a real win-win – we get a pavilion built that we couldn’t otherwise afford, we get it used all year round which is one of the objectives that the board has got for the development of the ground anyway and we have the space we need when we need it. It is the best deal we could possibly hope to get at minimum capital outlay from the club, so I think it’s a big tick.

 

How confident are you that the arrangement with Leeds Met in regard to the new pavilion will be problem free? From the sidelines it seems a bit odd to give away ownership of one of the major buildings just as we have finally got ownership of the ground, with all the advantages that has brought.

 

To refer back to the previous answer, we own the land and that is the key thing. We sub-lease that building back to Leeds Met and take back the elements we need. It satisfies the hosting agreement with the ECB because we still own the land, we get the building built by our partner and we end up with the best deal for everybody. As far as it being problem free, I can only comment on the relationship we’ve had with Leeds Met for the last 12- months, where they’ve been a fantastic partner and their work with the club in a number of different areas has been sensational. In the sports science area, strength and conditioning, sports psychology, bio-mechanics, nutrition, lifestyle – all things that the club haven’t got resources in and we would have to go out and buy. The players have been able to take advantage of some of the facilities and resources. On the marketing side they have worked with us on PR & Communications, promotional activity, projects and initiatives and it really is breaking the mould of partnerships. We are very happy with where we are with Leeds Met.

 

There will be legal contracts that will cover user restrictions and the need for development and all kinds of things, but there has been full consultation between the university, the club, the broadcasters, the Cricket Writers Club, the radio, all personal who will have use of the building. Whilst it’s still subject to planning and contracts, we are feeling that it’s in pretty good shape and we are very confident.

 

As I understood it, when the Yorkshire Pride Appeal was launched the main objective was to us the proceeds to build the pavilion. Now Leeds Met is involved, is the Appeal money being spent on something else?

 

Leeds Met are not going to be funding it exclusively, we will be making a capital contribution. The building will also need kitting out and if we are going to have high quality, exclusively Yorkshire areas such as a Yorkshire President’s room, top drawer player’s facilities, a new retail outlet (which will be selling cricket equipment as well as merchandise) – we want to make sure we have the best, so there will still be a need for investment. Any surplus that we develop through the Yorkshire Pride Appeal will then help us pay off outstanding obligations on the ground and then we’ll start looking at developing the Main Stand, which will be the next project on the blocks, and we’re looking to do that after the Ashes. Any money that we get there will always be a home for.

 

In our last interview you mentioned Geoffrey Boycott was keen to get the board to talk about cricket, rather than business. Which comes first the cricket or the business?

 

Both of them are integral parts of the board’s agenda. I don’t know how it was before I joined. I suspect that it was business led, because at the time the board were trying to buy the ground and there was a lot of pressure on the board to complete the deal and I suspect the club were very internally focussed. Certainly since I came on board and Geoffrey came on board, the cricket and the business aspects have been side by side on the agenda. We always have a set agenda item for cricket and Geoffrey always joins, even by telephone, for that part of the agenda and he is, as you can imagine, very vocal in his thoughts. Geoffrey’s involvement has been absolutely fantastic.

He has made introductions to bring players across like Khan and Rudolph and his knowledge and his insight his superb. He’s good friends with Gough and Moxon, they’re all South Yorkshire lads and there is a bit of mutual respect there as well and he’s been good for the club. Sometimes it really annoys me when I see people slagging Geoffrey off on message boards for something that happened over twenty years ago and I just feel they need to draw and line under it, get over it and move on. We’ve got to look forward and not live in the past. What’s gone on before at Yorkshire, none of us can do anything about. It’s in what I call a ‘sod all box’ and we can’t do anything about it – just accept it, get over it and lets focus on the future. Life’s too short and if people want to see this club being successful again we need to be all together.

 

You refer to cricket as ‘the product’. That sounds strange to a lot of us supporters as to us the club is cricket.

 

In the commercial department and on the board we talk about cricket being the product. If it was a blue chip business then our product would be cricket. If we are selling our product and if the consumer wants our product then we are in better shape and therefore we’ve got to get the product right. Just as businesses spend time on fine tuning their product, on marketing it better, on trying to attract new consumers and new target groups, that’s exactly what we’re trying to do with cricket. We’ve got a portfolio of brands – Twenty20, Championship, Pro40 and the Friends Provident Trophy – every one of them has got different target audiences and need marketing in a slightly different way, but we’ve actually got to get the product right and unfortunately this hasn’t been right and we haven’t sold enough of our product to maximise our income. Going forward, hopefully people have got a sense in the last few months that we are taking cricket more seriously now. We’ve got the business side sorted, we’ve got the finances stabilised and now we’ve got to pay attention to the product and that is being dealt with.

 

Can you see a time when we are self-sufficient enough that income from international cricket is a bonus rather than an essential?

 

Oooh, it might take us quite a while because of the contributions we get from both the ECB broadcasting money and the money that we generate through Test tickets. In an ideal world we would like to get a greater proportion of our turnover from non-cricket related activities, whether that’s pop concerts, conferences and perhaps selling Yorkshire into new markets. The ECB handout is quite important and it raises quite a philosophical question about why do we exist as a county cricket club? We are kept alive financially by the money that we get from the England team, broadcasting rights and the sponsorship that the ECB distributes eighteen ways.

If it wasn’t for the England team we probably wouldn’t have the club that we’ve got here today, so when people say that we’ve developed Michael Vaughan and Matthew Hoggard and they never ever play for the club, you’ve actually got to understand that that’s why we are existing. By developing the very best talent to come through the club and play for the country, and any young cricketer aspires to play at the highest level. Whilst I accept that sometimes it has an effect on the performance at county level, and Durham would probably be the classic example of that as they lost Harmison, Plunkett and Collingwood and would probably have been in the top few clubs with them. Nevertheless you have to recognise the importance of the England side.

 

What has happened to the membership numbers since the various announcements - has there been a sudden increase in members?

 

Yes they have, the numbers have gone through the roof. Last Saturday we opened the membership office and had to work the weekend for the first time this year just to cope with the demand. The phones never stopped ringing. We’ve had complimentary letters instead of the ones with pictures of tombstones and RIP Stewart Regan written on them that we were getting at Christmas – we’re now getting something a little more pleasant, which makes for better reading.

 

Is there more the club can do to involve players with its supporters?

 

I think as a club we’re trying to become much more community focussed. We are currently seeking a community partner and are hopeful that we can bring somebody to the table on that quite quickly and as part of that there will be much more of an involvement of players in the community. There is already a lot of work with players making guest appearances in schools and getting involved in coaching. Andy Gale, for example, is running his own coaching clinic, as is Tim Bresnan. There is a lot of involvement with kids and the community. Most of our players play for local cricket clubs in Yorkshire if they are not playing in the 1^st Team and they are interacting with kids and passing on the benefit of their experience. I think we are doing a lot, but there is always more we can do.

 

Someone has commented that the official website could be better, in particular a lot of the player information is quite out of date and in some instances incorrect.

 

I’ve picked up that a couple of people have commented on it recently and as we speak the profiles are being updated. Just so people are aware we run this club, in terms of marketing, admin and support staff, with 16 people, which is probably less than any other first class county. The work that everybody does is mammoth. If you think yourself about how much time you take to run your website, if you think of a club as big as Yorkshire it takes a hell of a lot of work to keep on top of things. The website is managed and updated by a couple of retired volunteers, who work with the club and I think they do a fantastic job, but sometimes we do get a little bit behind and we’ve got to get a bit smarter.

 

Do you see yourself being with the club for the long haul?

 

I would certainly like to think that I’m here until we deliver the vision which is to get this ground as one of the leading venues in the world of cricket. I’d like to think that the pavilion project and the main stand project, I’ll be here to get them through. It will be great to see the output of the boards work. I’ve got no intention of moving on at the moment. I’ve only just started this job and the club has come a hell of a long way in the first 12-months, but there’s a lot to do and I’d like to think that I can play an important role in that.

 

Have you contracted the cricket bug yet?

 

Yeah I have. I found myself watching some of the Test games on TV and the one day international series against Australia and in the last few days I’ve been watching some of the World Cup games and I would never have done that before. I would never have gone to my wife and said ‘you’re not watching this are you, because I want to put the cricket on’, so yeah I think I am gradually becoming a convert. That’s good because if you are selling something you’ve got to believe in the product you are selling and I’m certainly becoming very, very passionate about Yorkshire cricket and I will defend the club to the hilt against anybody.

 

You must have been putting in the hours in the last couple of months. Have you family and friends ever lost their patience or have they been understanding?

 

It’s interesting because I’ve always had jobs where I’ve spent quite a lot of time at work. When I was working in the brewing industry many of the jobs I had were jobs that involved quite a lot of evening work, I was at pubs or clubs or at meetings in licensed premises, which went on into the night. At the Football League I was up and down on the train to London quite a lot and spent a lot of time watching football matches, which some might not think is work, but for me when you’ve got to go down to Ipswich or Plymouth on a Saturday morning it is quite a trek. So this job is no different. I’ve worked a lot of hours, as have the whole board and the management team, over the last few months, but I enjoy it and it’s worth it to see things starting to turn ‘round. The good thing is that I live on the doorstep and that was one of the attractions of doing this job in the first place. It’s only twenty minutes to work, which is no time at all really, so I enjoy that benefit.

 

When you manage to have free time what do you do to relax and forget about Cricket?

 

I’m an athletics coach. I do a bit of coaching with under-13’s kids at Leeds City Athletics Club and try and do that on a Tuesday and Thursday evening if I can. My daughter is running for Yorkshire at cross country so I spend quite a lot of time supporting her. I enjoy watching Sunderland football club and they are doing really well this season. I’ve always followed Sunderland and it’s nice to see them doing so well.

What are you going to do all summer without all the hassle he has had to sort out in the winter to occupy his time?

 

I’ll probably focus on the ground development and looking forward all the time to where we need to be as a club. We’ve had a good year financially. We’ve had a crap year with all of the cricket matters to deal with, but there’s still an awful lot of work to be done here and the work doesn’t stop just because we’ve sorted out the cricket matters. We’ve got to keep the club in profit, we’ve got to focus on getting funding for the ground development, we’ve got to make sure the staff are motivated and everyone knows what they are doing, so there’s still a big job to be done here, so it’s still foot on the accelerator and we’ll still be driving forward.

 

On a match day how much time does he actually get to watch the cricket?

 

I haven’t got an office with a glass window overlooking the pitch, unlike some of my colleagues at other county grounds, which I’m quite envious of. I’ve got a little office that we’re sat in now with windows that you can’t see out of because they are higher than the level of the desk. I do try and get out and walk around the ground and see the odd over here and there and I go and talk to the members in the Long Room, I’ll go and see the guys in the Exec Club, speak to the journalists in the Media Centre. I take in bits and pieces during the day, but I don’t think in this job you can ever sit and watch cricket for 4-days on the trot, otherwise someone will say ‘what’s your job then?’ My role is to make sure that the club runs properly and in order to do that you’ve got to be out there walking to talk so to speak and making sure everything’s going as it should.

 

So on the plans for the new pavilion you haven’t earmarked a glass fronted penthouse suite?

 

I’ve got my eye on a nice glass fronted office overlooking the pitch but I’m not sure if the planners or the designers will be happy with that (laughs) we’ll have to see.

 

I saw on the official site that you are down to bowl the first ball in a Leeds Met event at Headingley. Did you do better than Steve Harmison?

 

Well, it was exactly like Steve Harmison’s. I don’t think I’ve bowled since I was at school and I was asked to bowl and I thought it was going to be a photo opportunity only, with a camera, me and a guy with a bat, but when I turned up there were about one hundred students ready to start and indoor cricket match. They threw me the ball and said ‘go and bowl’ and I think the first one went into the wall, but I had a couple of trial runs and then I got one okay.

 

Do you own a Yorkshire 4-day shirt or one-day shirt?

 

Well, I think in our last interview you described it as a ‘yellow nasty thing’ but I’ve got one of those one day shirts from last season and I wore it on holiday last year.

 

Thanks to Stewart for his time.

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