New man Arthur sets out his Yorkshire vision with promise of a brighter future

Chris Waters: First of all, what is your background?

Mark Arthur: I was brought up in Surrey. I worked in marketing at the old Test and County Cricket Board and moved up to Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club in 1994. I became chief executive of the club in 1997 and left to become Nottingham Forest chief executive after the 1999 cricket World Cup. I was at Forest until January of this year.

CW: Why did you leave Forest?

MA: Basically, a Kuwaiti family bought the club and once they’d settled in they wanted to run things their own way. I think eight of us left all told, but there was no issue at all from my point of view. It was all very amicable.

CW: So why Yorkshire?

MA: I always wanted to come back to cricket at some stage because that is my first love. I had a great time with the TCCB and I had a successful period when I moved to Trent Bridge.

I was invited to go into football and, as a marketing and business person, and because football is the biggest game in the world, I wanted to test myself in that environment.

I have been tested and, while often chief executives in football are blamed for absolutely everything, we had a very successful time off the pitch. This job came up at the perfect time, but I wouldn’t have gone back to any job in cricket. The Yorkshire job is the biggest county cricket job and I’m very honoured to have got the role.

CW: You say cricket is your first love. Did you keep in touch with the sport during your time at Forest?

MA: I’ve still got many friends in cricket and, although I’ve had 13 years in football, I’ve stayed very close to cricket during that period. I must confess I didn’t know Colin Graves (the Yorkshire chairman) before I applied for the job, but I know a lot of people who know him and he’s one of the reasons I’ve come to the club. I think he’s done a fantastic job for Yorkshire over the years.

CW: Will the experience of having been chief executive of a high-profile football club benefit you in your new position?

MA: Definitely. Football has toughened me up and there are probably those who would say I need that coming to Yorkshire.

But I’m without doubt a far better operator for the experience I’ve had in football than I would have been if I’d just stayed in cricket, far more rounded as a person.

Clearly, football’s ahead of cricket with regard to dealing with agents and such like and you have to be pretty media savvy as well.

CW: What is your first priority at Yorkshire?

MA: The first priority is simply to sell as many tickets as possible for the New Zealand Test at the end of the month. We need to get as many people into Headingley as we can to showcase what a fantastic cricket ground it is to the world.

Then, hopefully, next season more people will want to choose Headingley as a place of destination to watch their cricket, and so on. We need to build on our service year after year.

CW: How are ticket sales going?

MA: They’ve really picked up in the last few days. The sun has started to shine and people are thinking about cricket again. We’ve also been helped immeasurably, I think, by the early-season form of Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow, who should stand a pretty good chance of being chosen for the Headingley Test, along with Tim Bresnan.

That will hopefully encourage more Yorkshire supporters to come and watch the match.

I also think it is going to be a very interesting series. New Zealand took everybody by surprise during the winter with how competitive they were and they have come over here determined to show they’re not going to play second fiddle to the Aussies, with the Ashes taking place later this summer.

They’re going to try to give England a good run for their money and hopefully we’ll see a very competitive Headingley Test.

CW: Are too many clubs competing for a slice of the international cake?

MA: Totally. It’s ridiculous. There’s not enough international cricket to go round and what cricket doesn’t want to do is go down the same route as football has done, especially in the Championship, where you’ve got so many insolvent clubs that are beholden to a few individuals. We’re very lucky to have the support of Colin Graves; where would Yorkshire cricket be without him? But you can’t rely on that long-term.

What we’ve got to do is make sure we improve the income streams of Yorkshire County Cricket Club in order that we can invest in the fabric of Headingley. At the moment we are carrying too much debt to make significant changes, and we’ve got to pay some of that debt down, as everyone knows. Therefore, it’s incumbent on myself and the team to increase the revenue streams for Headingley and Yorkshire cricket.

CW: How many clubs should be staging international cricket in your view?

MA: I’m a traditionalist with regard to cricket and sport in general. I believe very much in six Test match grounds. That might be controversial to some people, but that’s how I feel.

I think it’s disrespectful to overseas cricketers that come over here and want to play at the traditional grounds where their predecessors have played.

CW: How do you ensure Yorkshire is one of those clubs?

MA: We’ve got Test cricket guaranteed at Headingley until 2019 and need to make sure that by that time we are firmly established as one of the top four or five Test match grounds in this country, and I believe that’s achievable.

The history and tradition is at Headingley and now that the club owns the ground, I think that’s going to be significant in the way that we can take the club forward.

Durham are having one or two problems at the moment, and, being totally one-eyed about it, we’ve got to make sure that we up our game, we provide a great level of service and we attract large crowds to Headingley.

CW: Yorkshire are some £20m in debt. How do you go about reducing that?

MA: The biggest opportunity is through the sale of international tickets. One of our challenges at the moment is to get people to come down to Headingley at what is the end of the football season. The football season squeezes cricket more and more each year and it only seems to be the month of June when football goes on holiday and people are not talking about it. We’ve got three weeks now to excite the Yorkshire public and get them to support the England team.

CW: What are your initial impressions of Yorkshire CCC?

MA: Lovely people – I’ve seen that straight away. A young and vibrant staff and people that want to win on-and-off the pitch.

The club has undergone a number of changes over the last few years since Stewart Regan left and Colin Graves has been holding the fort; they’ve reorganised the cricketing side of things and, under Martyn Moxon, Jason Gillespie and Paul Farbrace, they seem to have a very tight unit and some very talented youngsters coming through. There seems to be a real togetherness there, on-and-off the field.

CW: What was your proudest achievement as Nottinghamshire chief executive?

MA: The development of the Radcliffe Road stand was the main factor. We raised about £5m in grants and built the £7.3m Radcliffe Road stand which has changed the whole dimension and aspect of Trent Bridge and how it’s perceived in world cricket. Trent Bridge didn’t use to get the lion’s share of international cricket, but the development programme there, which started off in 1993, has transformed it into a fantastic cricket ground.

I don’t want to talk too much about Nottingham, though. My job now is to come to Yorkshire with all the experience I’ve got and to do the best I can for Yorkshire cricket.

CW: Do you play cricket yourself?

MA: Yes. I played for Surrey up to Under-25 level but stopped when I had to go out into the world of work. I’m an all-rounder and a very bad one now who hides in the field. I play for Flintham Cricket Club down in Nottinghamshire. When I first moved up to Nottinghamshire, I played in the Premier League, but I stopped playing in that in 1996. Then, as my children were growing up, we moved to a village near Flintham and the club was looking for new members and I joined them in 2004. I’ve been heavily involved with them since.

CW: What type of cricket do you most enjoy?

MA: I prefer Test matches and Championship cricket, and if you asked me what I’d like to win at Yorkshire it would be the Championship every single year.

I see the one-day game as great entertainment, but the real test of cricket is in the longer version.

I have recently been out to India with my family and I went to an IPL game to get the experience, and the noise was unbelievable.

But I see the shortened version of the game as fun and entertainment, whereas the Championship is the competition I most want to win.

CW: How do you get more people to watch cricket?

MA: The way to get the new generation involved is undoubtedly through Twenty20. Therefore, we’ve got to make sure that Headingley is as full as possible with schoolchildren and families.

If you get the children involved then the mums will get involved, and if the mums get involved then the dads will be allowed to go down to watch the cricket too.

I’ve managed to increase crowds quite dramatically at Nottingham Forest over the years, and I hope I can bring that experience to bear at Yorkshire.

When I arrived at Forest, the average crowd was 17,000, but we managed to get it up to 23,000 and that was all through getting the future generation involved.

That’s basically what we need to do at Yorkshire. We’ve got to get out there. We can’t just sit back and say, ‘This is Yorkshire cricket. This is Headingley. Surely you know where we are? Surely you know when the fixtures are?’ We’ve got to get everybody involved in the club.

CW: What is your leadership style?

MA: I’m a very strong communicator, I’m inclusive, I operate with an open door policy and I’m available at all times to both staff and supporters alike.

I will be very much front of house and I intend, over a period of time, to get around as many cricket clubs as I can in Yorkshire because I don’t want Yorkshire cricket to be Leeds-centric.

I will be available, during the winter, if invited, to attend cricket club dinners and I will always do Q&A sessions with cricket people.

I will be out and about and I won’t be hiding away in my office during home matches. I will walk around the ground so that I’m accessible and people will be able to approach me.

I will talk to people but I won’t be appearing on television or radio shows every five minutes unless there is something specific to talk about. I will be available to talk to the members and all cricket stakeholders in Yorkshire.

CW: Will you be coming up to live in Yorkshire?

MA: Yes, I’ve already got an apartment in Leeds, and I will be living there most of the time. I don’t believe you can do this job properly – and it is a massive job – unless you’re living it every day.

Although I’ve still got my family home down in Nottinghamshire, I will be up in Yorkshire most of the time.

I’m at a certain stage in life where one of my children has left school and the other one is at boarding school, so I’m able to do what I want to a certain extent. I’m very happily married and my wife adores sport just as much as I do.

CW: Are you at Yorkshire for the long haul?

MA: One thing I would make clear is that I do not see the Yorkshire job as a stepping stone to something else.

There’s so much to do that, until I get bored, or until Yorkshire get fed-up of me, then I’m going to be around.

Yorkshire is a unique cricket club, it’s a unique brand, and Headingley is a very special place. This job will not just be a job for me, it will be a passion as well, a labour of love.

CW: Finally, what is your message to the Yorkshire members and supporters?

MA: Be positive about the future of Yorkshire cricket, because I am.

We’ve got the structure in place and now we have to engage more people and get them to support, in some shape or form, Yorkshire cricket.

I just want everyone to feel part of Yorkshire cricket going forward.