Foxes Focus - Dan Nice

Profile section

Name: Daniel Nice

Role: Cricket Operations Manager

Department: Cricket mainly but I work with the whole club, including the Board of Directors

Years at Leicestershire: 13th full season but worked here before that as a summer job. Been coming to the FCG since my dad brought me around in a pushchair!

 

About you - shutter mode

Describe yourself in three words. Hardworking, diligent, empathic

Where are you from? Leicester - connections with South Yorkshire

What is a fun fact about you? I once sat next to One Direction’s Louis Tomlinson at a football match

Do you have any pets? No

What is your favourite food? Italian

If you could travel anywhere in the world [before COVID-19], where would you go? New Zealand

 

Life at Leicestershire County Cricket Club

Summarise Leicestershire CCC in three words: Traditional but evolving

Summarise your role in 50 words: I organise logistics for the professional teams, look after players, help to manage the cricket budget, write contracts, ensure compliance with ECB regulations, help to run matchdays, provide administrative support for the Board, and produce reports for 2 of our 5 pillars. I’m also currently the club’s Deputy COVID Officer

What are your current top priorities in your role?

- Ensuring a safe return to cricket and maintaining that. It’s important we don’t take anything for granted.

- We also have to be open to change in these times - if you do what you did, you’ll get what you got...

What does your matchday routine involve? Anything and everything from ensuring the match officials have what they need, to making sure players have kit, to helping to edit the match report if needed! Two days are never the same

What is your favourite memory from on the pitch? Nico taking THAT catch at Finals Day in 2011. The trophy was written in the stars! A fox even followed me home after we won the quarter-final against Kent here.

What is your favourite memory off the pitch? Doing one of the world’s highest and longest zipwires on the pre season tour to South Africa! To highlight what a small world it is, thousands of miles away from home, the person who pushed me down - who only had access to the odd FA cup game on an old TV - knew that Darren Ferguson was Doncaster Rovers manager at the time!

Where do you see Leicestershire CCC in the next 12 months? We’ll keep building internally, but externally it’s impossible to say given the pandemic

Who is your Leicestershire Foxes favourite player? Two cricketers who never gained the international recognition they should have: David Millns was my hero growing up, and Brad Hodge played in that era where so many great batsmen couldn’t get a regular game for Australia. He was also key to our early T20 wins; he and Jeremy Snape bowled those off breaks that nobody could seem to hit as well as being in the middle together for the win at Edgbaston. For pure excitement, Shahid Afridi was a player who I stopped whatever I was doing to watch bat.

Who are you most looking forward to watching on the pitch this season? I enjoy both formats of the game so while I enjoy Arron Lilley’s approach to T20 batting, I will also enjoy watching Hassan Azad taking the shine off the new ball.

 

A bit more about you

What is your favourite holiday destination? I like to try different places but Croatia is my current favourite spot. Also think the UK is underrated and more people will discover it during the pandemic. I enjoy a holiday in the Lakes or Cotswolds, or somewhere coastal down south.

Apart from cricket, do you watch any other sports? Watch most sports but anybody who knows me will know that Doncaster Rovers are my first love!

If you could invite any 3 celebrities to dinner who would it be and why?

1. Marcus Wareing - what a chef!

2. Billy Sharp - nicest footballer in the professional game

3. Jenna Coleman

From the past I’ve love to have chatted to Nelson Mandela, Charles Darwin and Neil Armstrong (how long could we have spoken before mentioning the moon?!)

What do you enjoy doing in your spare time? Watching my daughter grow up.

 

The impact of COVID-19

How has the delay to the season impacted your role?

I know there are of people a lot worse off than me in the world currently, but cricket operations has been incredibly difficult this season. Every minute detail has been affected from the pre-season tour to how we travel to games, from sourcing a meal on an away trip to how balls are used during practice

How has the lockdown impacted your role?

Working remotely was a challenge with communication - but then coming back to the offices has also presented challenges. I’ve almost had to organise two ‘different seasons’ for the First XI, seen all Second XI prep not ultimately come to anything, and worked to so many different scenarios and hypotheses. As someone who likes organisation and structure, and planning in advance, it has pushed me out of my comfort zone. Maybe that’s a good thing – I’ve learned to go with the flow. I’d like to pay tribute to my colleagues because it’s been a massive team effort - those working have been putting in huge shifts and those that haven’t have understood why. I can’t imagine what it’s been like to have your livelihood taken away by the pandemic

What have you been up to during the lockdown?

I have actually probably done more hours at work than had the season been going normally! It’s been so busy adapting to the new normal initially, and then getting cricket back on here at the FCG, and keeping the club operating as normally as possible. I haven’t done anything socially for months and I’ve tried to put my time to good use. Home schooling has been the biggest challenge - my science was never any good and my maths isn’t what it used to be!

Cricket is back on August 1, describe how you feel in 3 words:

One word – relieved!