Chairman's Blog
2 August 2021
As the 2021 Visit Cayman Islands Cheltenham Cricket Festival has now finished I thought its a good time to pause and reflect on the first four months of the season.
The pandemic has impacted on many, not just professionally but personally and the world of cricket has been no different. After last season was played out behind closed doors, the start of this season was to be the same. All at the Club, whether players or the wider team have made extraordinary efforts to get cricket back. I have seen at first hand their commitment and dedication in sometimes very challenging circumstances and they are all to be congratulated on what they have achieved.
Equally I know that they are hugely thankful for the support of our members, sponsors and supporters, whether they have attended matches at Bristol or Cheltenham or watched the stream on the website which goes from strength to strength.
The season has consequently been squeezed and the scheduling of matches has been relentless for both players and supporters. We were excited to welcome crowds back to the Somerset match on the 20 May which was only a couple of months back. Having you all back in the ground makes a massive difference to all of the players and staff at the Club. We all cherish the spine-tingling moment when Somerset lost their first wicket at Bristol with a crowd back in and the Mound Stand erupted in a way I don’t think many of us have seen at a four-day fixture before.
Sadly the lockdown “lifting” we were all hoping for on the 19th June didn’t come to pass and whilst this was a disappointment in terms of allowing larger crowds back in we have been able to welcome the overwhelming majority of our members and supporters back to matches.
Nevertheless since then, apart from our domestic cricket commitments, we have successfully delivered the first Test Match ever played at Bristol, against India Women, an International Women’s ODI and a Men’s ODI!
In cricketing terms we got off to a “flier” with records galore being broken in the County Championship by the Gloucestershire squad. It was perhaps inevitable that as has so often been the case it was the last session of the last 4 day match at Cheltenham that decided the first part of our County Championship season. We know the players were disappointed not to progress to the top group for the September matches but we still have a lot to play for and now eagerly await those Autumn fixtures.
Our expectations were once again high for the T20 Blast and having been one of the most consistent performing side of recent years it was shame that we couldn’t qualify for the knockout stages on this occasion. It is a measure of the expectation of all of us at the Club that we now expect to make the latter stages of every tournament we play in and with that resolve in mind we will surely bounce back even stronger for the remainder of this season and into 2022.
I know for many of us the emergence of new local talent is always an exciting moment and it has been brilliant to see Dom Goodman, Ollie and Tom Price and more recently, Ben Wells, start to play regular 1st XI cricket for the Club. All of them have featured in recent matches and put in important performances at crucial points in games.
For all of the players it has been a packed schedule but we were all hugely proud that two of our number, James Bracey and David Payne received England call ups. The role of a First Class County is, in part, to feed players into the England squad and we were so pleased for them at having an opportunity to participate in the top tier.
Today we started the recruitment process for both a Performance Director and a Head Coach. These are both very important roles in shaping our future success on and off the pitch. The Performance Director is a new role we have created with a real focus on talent identification and development as well as the performance management of all of our cricketers and support teams. Whilst being competitive in all formats we have also made clear our aim to win another white ball trophy in 2023 and the county championship in 2025. Both of these roles will be crucial to achieving these goals.
We were particularly pleased to be able to deliver a Cheltenham Festival to remember, in advance of the Festival’s 150th Anniversary next year. This looked very different as it was simply uneconomical for us to bring in stands, and we experimented with stretch tents which delivered more ventilation. The feedback I received was welcome and overwhelmingly positive; the most important thing was that both cricket and a sense of community were back!
I am well aware that the Cheltenham Festival holds a special place within the county, especially from those not only in Cheltenham but Gloucester, North Cotswolds, the Forest of Dean and across the cricketing world. We are already thinking about what the Festival could look like for next year. We will do all we can to continue to support the last remaining significant Cricket Festival on the circuit!
The finances of the game continue to be strained, and as a Board we are working hard to ensure that the strong financial results we have hitherto achieved are maintained. This is not easy and the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), like many other Governing Bodies face huge uncertainty in the current climate. We receive a number of annual payments from them and we will play our part in looking at other ways we can bring much needed revenue into the Club. One of the larger allocations we receive are monies from broadcasters, both BBC and Sky in respect of the new competition, The Hundred, which launched on 21 July at the Kia Oval, with our local team being Welsh Fire who play out of Cardiff.
This is a really important competition aimed at attracting a very different audience into the game. We all want it to be a success and are delighted that so many Gloucestershire and Western Storm players are getting the opportunity of bringing cricket to a new generation.
With most of the Covid-19 restrictions now lifted we’ve really enjoyed welcoming you all back to the Bristol County Ground in a slightly more relaxed atmosphere – allowing you to choose where you sit and just use your membership passes for entry. All staff and players will be continuing to adhere to the previous Covid guidance around things such as social distancing and mask wearing and we would encourage you all to do the same. We’ve enjoyed having you all back and don’t want to risk anyone falling ill or starting a “pingdemic”!
Thank you once again for all of your support and as the summer holidays continue, I hope you have an opportunity to have a break or to enjoy some cricket in the sunshine!
