ANNUAL REPORT 2019

NOTTINGHAMSHIRE COUNTY CRICKET CLUB 2019 ANNUAL REPORT & ACCOUNTS 56 other areas of its business to ensure that it was not over-reliant on exist- ing income streams. The new Restaurant Six would be opened in the coming weeks, with that goal very much in mind – and the meetings and events business also provided significant growth potential.The aim was to replicate the welcoming and customer focus- sed approach offered on match days to non-match days, making Trent Bridge a venue of choice all year round. Away from the specific day-to-day business of Nottinghamshire and Trent Bridge, it had been a very demanding year.The 18 First-Class Counties, MCC, the bodies repre- senting the recreational game, the PCA and the ECB continued to develop and update the strategy for the game as a whole. All representatives had to come together and, in some instances, put short-term self-interest aside as they tried to find the right solutions to serve cricket in the long-term. Such collaborative working was not always the way it had been portrayed in the media, but the spirit of work- ing together for the greater good had, she assured the members, been strong in the main. Ms Pursehouse’s memories would be of a year of compromise – 12 months of navigating the way through conflicting priorities in order to find the right balance of measures designed to nurture and develop cricket in the country. Collectively, six key priorities had been identified which would be focussed upon in a bid to retain and grow the game – and safeguard its future – between 2019 and 2024. A key element was to increase the appeal to young people. Partici- pation programmes like All Stars Cricket for youngsters aged five to eight had been developed and were a step in the right direction. In all corners of the county during the summer months, children had been picking up a bat and ball and starting a relationship with cricket – many for the first time.Young people who play cricket become the adult supporters and members of the future. As importantly, by hosting these programmes, the club was introduc- ing new people and increasing par- ticipation at local recreational clubs so that they remained sustainable. There would also be new programmes in state schools at primary and sec- ondary level and significant funding had been committed to enable this. Another priority was to make cricket more accessible by broad- ening its appeal. Those initiatives included the new tournament,The Hundred – a format designed to attract families, played in the school holidays and short enough to appeal to prime-time free to air TV. It would feature a women’s com- petition running parallel with the men’s, so that all young people could be inspired and know that it was possible for them to achieve their dreams. A South Asian strategy had been developed to tackle the under-rep- resentation of people from those communities who were, after all, some of the most passionate lovers of the game. For many, a love of cricket was in their DNA. Yet, people from those communities were under-represented as spectators, as elite and recreational players and in executive positions within cricket. With that in mind, the club was working with the Nottinghamshire Cricket Board to pilot a couple of projects on behalf of the ECB. These included a drive to recruit South Asian women as cricket acti- vators, as well as creating an ‘urban cricket centre’ by bringing back to life a derelict inter-city facility on Haydn Road in Nottingham and re-purposing it for community cricket. Another important strategic priority was women and girls. Girls at primary school age were actually showing greater preference for cricket than boys.Yet the structures that enabled them to pursue that interest throughout their lives was not in line with what was available for male participants. Although England’sWorld Cup victory was a moment to savour in 2017, there was much more work to do in terms of raising the profile of the women’s game at elite level. Ms Pursehouse was sure that many of the members at County Hall that evening would be heartened to hear that so much was being done to address the barriers and to drive new initiatives that ensured cricket was a sport that remained relevant and survived and prospered in a changing society.