Rod Bransgrove to step down as Hampshire chairman
Rod Bransgrove, the person who saved Hampshire cricket, has introduced he’ll step down because the county’s chairman on the finish of the season after 23 years.
Bransgrove, 72, rescued Hampshire from insolvency in 2000, accomplished the membership’s transfer from its 116-year residence at Northlands Road to the Ageas Bowl and has overseen a profitable period on the south coast. The £15 million he has spent on the county is greater than some other particular person has invested within the recreation all through the historical past of English cricket.
Bransgrove, who owns over 60% of the shares of the membership, can be changed by Nick Pike. Pike has been deputy chairman since 2021, having been an unique investor in Rose Bowl plc in 2001 and was managing director of Hampshire Cricket earlier than appearing as non-executive director and vice-president.
Bransgrove made the announcement to members forward of the LV=Insurance County Championship fixture with Essex within the atrium of the pavilion which bears his identify.
“I will be standing down as chairman of Hampshire Cricket at the end of the year,” he stated. “There are many reasons for this but for one I am getting older. Also when we started this journey 23 years ago I promised you four things.
“Firstly, that we might save Hampshire cricket from insolvency and the very fact we’re all right here is proof of that. Secondly, that we might create a crew that competes with the easiest in all competitions, and we at the moment are one of many groups no one desires to play.
“The third important point was that we would create a stadium capable of housing the very best international and Test match cricket and the recent announcement is the final validation of that very long and sometimes very difficult journey.
“And the opposite was to create a enterprise throughout Hampshire cricket to be sure that the county is rarely once more threatened with insolvency. We are a protracted method to doing that and the enterprise across the web site is turning into extraordinarily invaluable.”
The announcement coincides with the launch of Ivo Tennant’s biography Back from the Brink: How Rod Bransgrove Saved Hampshire from Extinction.
As part of the foreword for the book, England legend Ian Botham wrote: “If you look across the county golf equipment in England there may be one man who stands out. He didn’t play the sport professionally however he has supported it by means of his personal exhausting work, as a businessman and as a cricket lover who has each rescued Hampshire and developed an excellent worldwide venue on the south coast.
“[Without Rod] there would be no Rose Bowl, no international matches on the south coast and Hampshire County Cricket Club would have been homeless and destitute.”
Bransgrove’s resolution to step down comes after realising his ambition to host an Ashes Test match, with the bottom scheduled to host a match within the 2027 sequence. It would be the eighth Test match to be held on the bottom – with the opposite matches together with three behind closed doorways throughout the Covid pandemic and the World Test Championship ultimate between India and New Zealand in 2021.
The Ageas Bowl – which is ready to obtain a brand new title sponsor on the finish of this season – may also host India in 2029, a yet-to-be-decided Test in 2030, and a Women’s Ashes Test in 2031, together with common white-ball matches within the subsequent eight years.
Off-the-field Bransgrove has overseen the constructing and improvement of the Ageas Bowl – which now consists of the Hilton lodge and Boundary Lakes Golf Course, with plans for extra additions at present into account with Eastleigh Borough Council.
Having turned the county from a members membership to the primary county cricket PLC on his arrival, Bransgrove has thought of promoting the membership lately – and turned down a considerable supply earlier this yr.
Bransgrove stated in Back from the Brink: “A very successful businessman approached us with an offer to take over all the company’s debt and pay some tens of millions in cash to acquire the whole business but the attraction was not the money going into my pocket. The offer was based on the premise that he would immediately inject a further £50m after the purchase in order to move Hampshire forward.”
The membership is at present valued at over £100m, and carries round £60m in debt.
The Ageas Bowl hosted the primary T20 match in 2003 and Hampshire has been synonymous with the format, with a file ten visits to Vitality Blast Finals Days which have resulted in three trophies.
Bransgrove’s reign has additionally seen 4 different white-ball triumphs and a Division Two title within the County Championship, albeit with out ending a 50-year look ahead to a Championship regardless of loads of near-misses. Before Bransgrove arrived, Hampshire had solely managed eight trophies of their earlier 137-years.
He additionally put his weight behind bringing girls’s cricket to the Ageas Bowl and helped flip Southern Vipers into essentially the most profitable aspect within the nation. The crew has gained a Kia Super League, two Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophies, and two Charlotte Edwards Cups of their eight-year existence.
Bransgrove added: “Thank you for your amazing support over the 23 years. It has been astonishing as cricket has been through so much change in that time and nowhere more than at the Ageas Bowl.”