Leicestershire Monthly Report - May 2021

As lockdown begins to ease it feels like there has been a heightened amount of activity over the last month, which is great for the Club as (at the time of writing) we now look to welcome back our supporters… more of that in a minute but first an update on our Cricket Pillar.

The LV= County Championship is proving to be a real challenge for our young team. And whilst we would have liked more points on the table, there are some great positives from our ‘emerging’ team. Firstly bear in mind we are the youngest team in our group, up against international players and former division one sides, so when you reflect on the results, we have not only competed and in some cases shown incredible resilience but also provided 9 personal bests from our players. I think for us, it begins to show progress from our players and I think it gives us a real taste that more is to come and the best is ahead of them. It will take time and that is something our players and coaches are working on. That fact is borne out by when we played Surrey. They had more international caps than our team had county caps. I for one, am proud of our lads on what they have achieved to date but I am excited by what they can achieve in the future.

What has been pleasing to see is the progress our Academy players are making. In the first team, with the likes of Ben Mike, Sam Evans and Harry Swindell’s to mention just three (again all with personal bests this season) but also in the Second XI with five players making appearances for the team. Since I joined the Club, this was something our supporters wanted to see. For us, we believe in our positioning of the Academy of Cricket and are excited by what lies ahead. I did also have the pleasure recently of watching our Academy play at Shepshed Cricket Club. What I saw was impressive, great fielding prowess and a team with future potential.

I know the players, coaching staff and everyone associated with our cricket pillar will continue to work hard to achieve the targets and goals we have set ourselves. With your support and backing, I am sure we will get to our goals even faster. The future is going to be a challenge but most definitely bright.

Onto our Community Pillar. Again with the slow easing of lockdown, this ultimately means our community team can get out and visit schools and clubs. What is encouraging for us is that we have seen over 1,600 participants taking part in the All Stars and Dynamos Cricket programmes. There is clearly an appetite at the younger end for cricket which is great to see.

With regards to our Women and Girls team, their County Women’s Fixtures have now been completed and what was really encouraging is they finished third in the league, showing improvement on previous years.

Hopefully, you will have also seen our Tour De Foxes charity cycling challenge. If not, I would urge you to check out the official website, take a look, and if you like cycling then please consider taking part. It promises to be a tough but, ultimately rewarding event that will aim to support our Foundation and associated charities. 

Finally, on Community, I look forward to meeting some of our future coaches as I will be joining a session with our Senior Club Network Officer, Andy Hibberd at Rothley Park Cricket Club in June. 

On to our Company pillar. With the return of supporters to the Uptonsteel County Ground, a lot of focus has been on ensuring the ground is Covid compliant. As I am sure you will appreciate it has been incredibly difficult with continual changes that have occurred. We have tried to communicate as best we can to our members and supporters on the changes to the ground and procedures. Hopefully, this information has filtered through to you. At the time of writing, we had just completed Day 1 of the Middlesex fixture and it was great to not only see supporters in and following the new rules (Thank you for helping us) but, also to finally meet some of you. The feedback I received has been really useful and this will help us to continue to develop our Club further. 

Behind the scenes, we also continue to evolve. When I first joined we were falling short of some organisational practices such as HR, GDPR etc. In today's society, these business practices are more important than ever. Whilst we still have a huge amount of work to do on this front I can promise our supporters that we are tackling these ‘good business practices’ head-on. 

From a business position, our Commercial pillar continues to evolve and improve. At my former Club, we always used to refer to the phrase ‘Cash Is King’, and it’s no different here at Leicestershire. Without it, we struggle to progress. As supporters will have noticed, we have lost a lot of income (circa £120k at the time of writing) through our catering offering. This is a direct consequence of the Covid restrictions placed on us. However, what is pleasing is that through other parts of the commercial operation, we have tried to compensate for those losses. For example, more businesses are now partners of the Club (39 and growing) and the sales for the mixture of concerts and events are encouraging. What I would say is that I would encourage you, our supporters, as you return to the Uptonsteel County Ground to please continue to support our catering offering as it now begins to open up. Your support in this area can not be underestimated. Even if you purchase a cup of tea or one of the excellent pieces of cake from the Friends of Grace Road, those funds will only help your Club.

In mentioning new partners, it is great to see them continue to grow and this month we welcomed International brand B-Cure to the fold as well as the Batting Lab, DG Scott, and Mansfield Sports Group. Welcome to the Foxes Family.

Also joining as a media partner is Niche Publication. It is great to have another media organisation, particularly this time business-focussed joining our other media partners, Cool as Leicester, Sabras Radio and BBC Radio Leicester. 

If you have been to the Uptonsteel County Ground recently you will have noticed a new Marquee. As well as using this facility in the short term for our Gower Suite members and visiting Directors, this will now become a regular feature at the ground. Once we return to ‘normal’ and the Pavilion and Charles Palmer Suite starts to be used again, then the Marquee will open up for other uses. Again, I would urge you to watch this space. 

Finally onto the Cash Pillar of the Club.

Not wanting to sound like a broken record but the Club has lost circa £1.5m in revenues over the pandemic. With careful management and support from the UK Government and governing bodies, we have and continue to, navigate our way through difficult times. We have called this a mitigation strategy. However, there comes a time when this strategy will end and we need to begin to grow and expand. For now, we are calling this a ‘New Breed Strategy’… in other words, this is our chance to create a new chapter. This will mean new initiatives, changes to how we operate and a new mindset. I stress we as a Club must embrace this for us to develop and your continued support of the Club is crucial.

Finally, I would encourage you to monitor the website, and all of our social media channels to get the latest news from the Club.

Come on the #runningfoxes

Sean