I always enjoy and appreciate my emails from Long Time Supporter. They are well thought out and well written, so with his permission I present this to you.
Thank you
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A careful evaluation by the Management Board of club spending would seem to be essential. This would be best done during the winter of 2024/25 and not left until the playing season is underway. To ensure that the Head of Cricket who replaces Mickey Arthur has the maximum amount of money available to build a team for the future.
Ideally, the new Head of Cricket should have been selected by mid-summer to take up the appointment at the end of the 2025 season. The person selected might have to serve a termination notice and Derbyshire will want him involved in player contract decisions. Approaches to players with other counties who are out of contract at the end of the season start from 1 June each year.
An internal appointment would solve a lot of potential problems but only if the Management Board are convinced the club has anyone eminently suitable. Going down the route of again appointing a ‘big name’ Head of Cricket apart from being extremely expensive does not necessarily improve results.
Three midland counties, Leicestershire. Northamptonshire and Worcestershire are often looked at as broadly similar to Derbyshire but do not have a high-profile Head of Cricket. All three have performed better than Derbyshire over the last three years. Northamptonshire is probably the worst of the three and they have sacked their Head of Cricket.
Although it is pure speculation the Head of Cricket’s packages at Leicestershire, Northamptonshire and Worcestershire do not exceed £150,000 each. If this is true, Derbyshire could appoint a new Head of Cricket at a much lower cost without lowering expectations, as rumour suggests we are paying considerably more than this with salary, accommodation, flights etc.
In the opinion of many supporters, the most successful Derbyshire Coach over the last 45 years both for his team building and trophy acquisition is Phil Russell. Times have changed but not that much and someone who knows the county game inside out and is prepared to work tirelessly to build a team and then get the best out of them is what Derbyshire needs.
According to Derbyshire CCC 2023 Accounts a sum of £182,000 was received from the ECB for the sole purpose of supporting the Men’s Talent Pathway. The club spent £258,000. If it has not already been done, this is an area where future additional spending could be trimmed without harming the prospects of those young players with bright futures.
Another area that often puzzles supporters is why have both a Second XI Head Coach and Analytics and an Analyst and Support Coach, which is often regarded as something of an expensive duplication.
Taking all the above into account and a determination by the Management Board, whilst adopting a prudent budget and trimming expenditure where possible, to increase the playing budget, it would certainly offer a boost for the future on the field to match that off the field.
With a few tweaks, anything between £100,000 and £200,000 might be made available
Getting rid of Arthur would cost more than it saves given he'd need replaced (though I'd still do it) so there isn't a saving there.
ReplyDeleteAlways see comments saying the coaching should be trimmed, as a professional club in the era of sports science and what that offers then getting rid of analytical capacity would be an error as would cutting funding to anything related to pathways or development which is frankly where we should be focusing more investment.
Doubt there is anything wrong with the playing budget nor the club's overall finances. Just need to replace Arthur.