Fiscal issues

A piece in today’s Guardian suggests that Derbyshire made only just over £70,000 from their T20 home matches this season, a figure that was substantially lower than every other county but Leicestershire. The figures were, with the first being the total attendance and the second income:


Middlesex 68,378, £684,698

Surrey 67,323, £681,115

Essex 36,421, £549,000

Somerset 49,282, £327,000

Sussex 42,056, £280,100

Lancashire 34,771, £268,863

Hampshire 33,637, £230,594

Kent 24,730, £226,172

Yorkshire 33,955, £206,134

Nottinghamshire 49,638, £196,267

Warwickshire 31,196, £185,913

Worcestershire 18,259, £182,489

Glamorgan 31,641, £170,212

Durham 31,253, £145,726

Gloucestershire 19,871, £127,847

Northamptonshire 21,924, £124,358

Derbyshire 14,059, £70,159

Leicestershire 17,263, £67,454

The article closed by asking how Derbyshire and Leicestershire manage to survive. The answer being, at least in our case, that we live within our means. As I reported last week, Leicestershire are currently reporting a deficit of around £300,000 this season, primarily because of the big budget signings of Matthew Hoggard, Brad Hodge and Andrew MacDonald. We have been more prudent, but one look at the figures above is enough to show why we have lost Graham Wagg and Chris Rogers to other counties.Check out those Glamorgan and especially Middlesex figures and you will see what I mean.

I find it extraordinary that a city with a football club enjoying sizeable and loyal support through thick and thin – 25,000 is an average at Pride Park – cannot average 2,000 gates for the supposed showpiece matches of the season. Cricket is better value for money, so one assumes that there are two reasons for the problem. One is that people only have a finite amount of cash and they spend their summers saving up for football. The other is that we need the added stimulus of a successful side to attract more than just the cognoscenti. It is a Catch-22 situation of course. To be a successful side you need money but only a successful side will normally generate it.

John Clement, a long-time Derbyshire fan who comments fairly and sensibly on IMWT, hit the nail on the head today, when he said it is very difficult to maintain a competitive team on that level of revenue.

All John Morris can do is shop sensibly and prudently at the end of season 'sales', much akin to the sensible shoppers hitting the shops in January. The bigger names of domestic and international cricket will continue to elude him as money generally talks, but he has had sufficient success thus far to suggest that a few gems might surface over the winter. With Madsen, Hughes, Groenewald, Park, Jones, Durston etc he has done well. A few haven't worked out so well, but that's the way it goes at that end of the market. Buying established players is easy, but finding untapped talent and bringing them on takes time and no little skill.

Finally tonight I was amused at a contributor to IMWT suggesting that the signings of Wayne Madsen and Chesney Hughes were not the result of Morris’ scouting network but of personal contacts. Madsen came to the club from a recommendation by Luke Sutton, while Hughes was the result of his friendship with Cardigan Connor.

Isn’t that what it is all about? Scouting isn’t watching every player yourself, it is having a few people whose judgement you trust doing so on your behalf. As long as a few good ones percolate through to Derbyshire ahead of the pack (as they have) I’m quite happy, thanks very much.