Big plans at a club looking to future

Mar 28 2008 by Stuart Rayner, The Journal

First they established themselves as the North East’s number one club side, now South North are looking to spread their wings beyond cricket and into the community.

HIDDEN away in a Newcastle suburb, South Northumberland are one of English cricket’s secret success stories. But the Gosforth-based club have designs on spreading their influence way beyond the boundary.

At a time when many First-Class counties rely on hand-outs generated by the international game, the club are thriving on and off the field.

Having won the North East Premier League for the past five seasons, the appointment last summer of Mark Foster as chief executive was designed to make them as successful on the balance sheet as the scorecard. But although Foster’s main brief is to improve financial performances, it is only as a means to a philanthropic end.

While the club’s hierarchy have been working hard to raise the fitness of players who have dominated local club cricket, they are equally anxious to improve the health of the community. And they are disappointed their good intentions have not received more financial backing from the various funding bodies available to them.

“The club has moved from a situation where it wasn’t a real business to one where it is,” said chairman Ian Gilthorpe, a former South North captain. “We want to have a real good go at establishing ourselves both as a club and cricket centre and as a venue for parties and the like.”

Foster was involved in the Newcastle Falcons’ successful community programmes and, although his current employers are less high-profile, he is looking into setting up a charitable foundation that will allow them operate on similar lines to the region’s leading rugby union club, and the Newcastle Eagles basketball team.

“We aim to spread our wings beyond cricket and into the local area, using sport as the powerful tool it is,” he says. “We’re tackling things like social inclusion as well.”

Squeezed just off Gosforth high street between a shopping centre car park and a pub, South North’s ground and indoor cricket centre are used by local clubs and schools, and provided the pre-match practice facilities for last year’s Chester-le-Street Test between England and West Indies.

Proud of their role in grassroots cricket, Foster and Gilthorpe also want to help educate children and adults about health and diet. A family fitness course during the Easter holidays is one of a range of initiatives.

“There’s not another cricket club in the country with facilities like us,” Gilthorpe argues. “All the rest are attached to First-Class counties or schools. We have had to evolve our own models.

“Geoff Miller, now England’s national selector, was here last summer and told a dinner this place was unique and it was important people supported it. We knew that already but it was good to hear it from an outsider.

“We see ourselves as being here to serve the community. If the occasional player comes through, fantastic, but if we can produce players playing into their 20s and 30s, that’s the main thing.”

The pair believe funding is concentrated on the very bottom and the very top of the scale, and that South North and others suffer for being stuck in the middle. While Foster’s presence allows South North to jump through the necessary hoops to obtain grants, many small clubs are mired in bureaucracy.

“We’re seen to be leading the way but there’s a lot of effort and funding put into either the bottom area or the top level,” says Foster.

“You will only find one or two volunteers in every club and they have got to do more or less everything. Eventually you end up losing so many to the sport at grassroots level. It’s not big numbers. With £500 you can organise three cricket festivals. That’s got to be worth the chance.”

The club has an agreement to use Gosforth Middle School’s cricket field as an “overflow” ground and has appointed ex-Sussex and Durham wicket-keeper Martin Speight as a full-time coach alongside former Durham spinner Nicky Phillips.

They are currently working hard to develop girls’ cricket – and not just at South North.

“It’s really popular with girls,” Gilthorpe points out. “We’re probably already leading the way in terms of participation by North East girls but we’re not just looking to develop ourselves because they need someone to play.”

The players are expected to play their part on a quid pro quo basis. In return for the kind of fitness regime their former First-Class players did not receive at the peak of their careers, they are expected to help develop the next generation.

“We’ve sent them boxing at Glenn McCrory’s gym in Newbiggin Hall for six weeks to improve their fitness,” explains Gilthorpe. “We’ve also used Be Fit in Gosforth to produce individual fitness programmes, including things like pulling sleds with weights on. The players have loved it. There have also been seminars on diet and rest, which is just as important.

“It’s safe to say they will be the best prepared physically they have ever been. Even those who have been involved in county cricket haven’t experienced that level of back-up but it seems so obvious.

“The players are allocated to junior teams to support the managers there. They also have a responsibility as role models. It gives us massive resources to develop younger players.”