Northants Cricket: County chief executive David Smith is relishing his new role
Big Interview with new Northants Cricket Chief, David Smith.
HOW many times has the accusation of being out of touch been levelled at those with positions of power in the sporting world?
There isn’t a single sport that is immune and cricket, with its history of being run by those with both feet firmly entrenched in this country’s establishment, has, let’s be honest now, had more reason than most for any finger of blame to be pointed.
Times have changed and the cricketing scene of the 21st century sees plenty of administrators who have spent a lifetime immersed in the game.
And the newly-installed chief executive at Northamptonshire, David Smith, is one of those.
The 55-year-old native of Newcastle’s working life has encompassed spells as a player and chief executive, sandwiching a career in the leisure and entertainment industry with a few years as a county committee member thrown in.
A case of never out of touch rather than out of touch then.
And Smith, as with so many who have dedicated their sporting endeavours to the cricketing field, became hooked from an early age.
“I’ve got a passion for the game. If I wasn’t here I’d be watching it somewhere, on the TV or at a Test match. It’s always been in my blood and that won’t change.
“My dad played for a couple of years at Leicestershire in the early 1950s and a lot of minor counties cricket for Northumberland, my younger brother Paul played a lot for Warwickshire and my nine-year-old plays for Leicestershire Under-11s.
“We lived 200 yards from the County Club ground at Jesmond in Newcastle so every night from about the age of eight we used to walk up there and play. It’s been in my blood.
“I played in the England Schools festival at Liverpool when I was 15, ironically I travelled on the same train as your dad (small world isn’t it?), where the counties had scouts.
“I had the opportunity to go to both Warwickshire and Northants which I did that summer, the following Easter and that summer and I had a choice to make and I chose Edgbaston.”
And the 12 years Smith spent at Edgbaston, playing more than 300 times at senior level, left him with plenty of cherished memories and the feeling that he made the right decision all those years ago.
“It was a big Test match club and I’ve got no regrets.
“I was lucky in that they had John Jameson, Dennis Amiss, Alvin Kallicharan, Mike Smith, Rohan Kanhai, and they all retired at about the same time. In 1976 I got 1,000 runs as a 20-year-old then Jameson retired.
“Plenty of good players don’t get the breaks but I was lucky and I’m grateful that I got the chance to play at a club like Warwickshire.
“I look back on it with great fondness. Like everyone else I started with the ambition of playing for England which I was never quite good enough to do so from that perspective there is a little bit of disappointment.
“But it was a fantastic lifestyle, I’ve played in Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, South America and Hong Kong so it was very good to me.
“I finished in 1985, partly through a shoulder injury and partly because I’d had enough.”
Cricket then gave way to life in the leisure industry but the link with the game was kept intact by a stint on the Warwickshire committee which coincided with an exceptionally successful period of the Bears’ history.
“I initially, when I finished playing first-class cricket, went into PLC business life.
“I had 20 years in the leisure and entertainment industry for a company that owned the likes of the Blackpool Tower, the Winter Gardens, nightclubs and bars so it was a diverse background that I came from.
“I was on the committee at Warwickshire for 10 years so it wasn’t as if I disappeared from the game.
“And luckily they were fantastic years with how successful the team was. It was a pleasure to be involved.”
Having moved from the playing field to the committee room to his current berth in the chief executive’s office, Smith is well placed to pass comment on the change that cricket has travelled through over the past four decades.
And now that he is in the position of attempting to put a competitive team on to the pitch as opposed to doing his bit with bat in hand, there is one aspect he feels hasn’t altered for the better, that of the overseas players coming into the county game.
“We got it right with (Brian) Lara. I’ve never seen anyone bat like that.
“If I speak to Capes (David Capel) he’ll say that the bowlers liked to watch Ned (Wayne Larkins) bat because he used to go after the opposition bowlers and that was the same with Lara.
“If was a gift of God and it was incredible to watch and he’s one of the few players I’ve seen where no-one knows where to bowl at him.
“Sometimes it all fits together and to see someone at their peak, young and eager, it really was amazing and he was a special player.
“I played with Kallicharan and Kanhai and there was Lara, (Shaun) Pollock and (Allan) Donald. These are high-class international cricketers and it just doesn’t happen any more.
“If you play alongside these sorts of players can only help anyone alongside them.
“That’s difficult now because of the international calendar, you have the Indian Premier League so the top players aren’t available and the criteria has been tightened up to get overseas players here.
“Mike Hussey stands out of the players this club have had. A good Sheffield Shield player but not really well known.
He wouldn’t be able to get a work permit now because he hadn’t played for Australia. I understand the reasons why but it does make it a lot more difficult.”
This also extends to the dearth of appearances made by our international players but Smith is well aware of how things are and has a pragmatic attitude regarding his new employers’ standing.
“We have to be a successful international team and the counties have to buy into it because of the commercial aspect but the downside is that the England players don’t play county cricket. But that’s progress.
“The game has changed dramatically. Two divisions has had a massive impact and a good one but it has made life more difficult for the smaller counties.
“It has to be accepted, as a smaller club, that players will want to move to bigger clubs like the Test match clubs. That’s no different to any profession and we shouldn’t look at it as a problem.
“But if they can get on a central contract then the need to move isn’t as strong. The likes of Alex Wakely and Jack Brooks will have other clubs talking to them, that is the way of the world and we can’t hold people back from progressing as people and cricketers.”
This outlook, you would think, is far more likely to encourage an environment to achieve than the chip on the shoulder mentality often adopted by those clubs without the benefit of being able to host international cricket.
And Smith prefers to look at what lies ahead as a challenge rather than an uphill battle.
“Our challenge at the moment, like every other business, is to develop more commercial income and the key for me is to have a more successful Twenty20 campaign.
“We’re all going to face more pressures with regard to disposable income this year with the European Championships (football) and obviously the Olympics so there is a lot of sport on and with the economy not in the best shape it’s going to be a challenging year.
“The good thing for me is that Northants is a bigger club than Leicestershire in terms of its turnover.
“The ground has undergone more development, I’m old enough to have played here with the old pavilion where you got splinters in your feet, and it’s a very decent non-Test match ground.
“Recruitment and retention of players is a crucial area and it doesn’t do you any harm to have good facilities.
“So far, I’m thoroughly enjoying it. Thankfully I’ve been a chief executive at another first-class cricket club (Leicestershire) and I’m familiar with how the ECB work so that’s really helpful.
“I’m definitely looking forward to it. There’s a good team here so that is beneficial from my point of view, some good young players are being developed, there’s quite a strong academy so all in all the cricket side is in good hands.
“The club has done well and the chance is there for me to assist in taking it to the next stage.”
As is usually the case, everything comes down to timing and Smith admits that the opportunity to get back into the administrative saddle 18 months after his stint at Grace Road came to an end was too good to turn down.
“The opportunity to come here was very good and I live on the border with Leicestershire, it’s 16 miles to Leicester if I turn left out of my door and 22 to Northampton if I turn right so it’s ideal.
“I came here on trial when I was 15 and they treated me well so I’ve always had an affinity with the club and a lot of players from the north-east have come here down the years.
“It certainly benefited me staying in touch with the game and watching on a regular basis.
“The game becomes far easier when you’ve finished and you quickly forget about the difficult aspects so I’m glad that I’ve not lost touch and that always makes any transition to a job like this more straightforward.
“If you’re lucky enough to be involved in the game in some capacity, whether that is journalism, coaching or administration then you’re fortunate and I look at myself that way.”
While his work has only just got under way, Smith knows exactly what he wants to accomplish in the time that he has the role.
“I’m a believer that we’ve got an obligation to the next generation to leave a robust game and we need to try and ensure that people want to play cricket for Northamptonshire.”
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