Eyebrows were raised in two sports when it was announced Rob Andrew would enter the fraught, fragile world of county cricket as the chief executive of Sussex.
For Sussex, who received 50 applications to replace the estimable Zac Toumazi, and the county game, Andrew, a known quantity from beyond the sport’s boundary, represented quite a coup.
Sussex have no external debt but know full well which side of cricket’s have and have-not divide they are on. There was surprise, too, in rugby circles, where Andrew spent 33 years as a 71-cap fly-half, coach and administrator at club and international level. Since 1995, when he joined Sir John Hall’s push to replicate the Barcelona sporting model in Newcastle, Andrew had been at the cutting edge of rugby union’s professional era.
In August, he left the sport after 10 turbulent years at the RFU as the director of elite rugby, with reviews of his achievements mixed, partly because his remit was often hazy. However he is proud of his record, which includes a second player agreement, signed this year, that provides an uneasy truce in the club v country civil war for another eight years – and believes the pathways (England have won three of the past four Under-20 World Cups, having never reached a final before 2008) implemented during his time will be of benefit.
Andrew’s detractors say he went from professional pioneer to great survivor and ultimate insider, the director who oversaw five England coaches, the debacle of the 2008 tour to New Zealand and two messy World Cups. He admits he has seen “some poor governance at the RFU, particularly in 2011 – when it was abysmal” but swats away his critics. “I’ve been around too long to be bothered,” he says. “Through my time at the RFU, there were one or two personal agendas coming from the media. That comes with the territory. I’ve lived with that, playing and after. I don’t know why, but I have thick skin. Maybe it’s growing up on a farm in Yorkshire.”
It was time for a change, he thought. To where – in or outside sport – he was not sure, but to what, Andrew knew. He felt, given his experience, it was time to be a chief executive. “Sport is what brings me to life,” he says, so when, after a month’s holiday followed by a few weeks’ thinking time, the opportunity at Sussex came up, it “immediately felt very right.”
Andrew is familiar with cricket. He and his Glamorgan counterpart, Hugh Morris, spoke plenty when they held equivalent roles at the ECB and RFU, and he scored a century for Cambridge University against Nottinghamshire in 1984. Despite seeming taken aback by the weighty schedule, it has taken little time for Andrew to grasp where the county game is; one size most definitely does not fit all. “I have had chats with other CEOs, and all the counties are in slightly different places,” he says. His point has never been better illustrated than needy Northamptonshire being gifted cast-off stadium seating by affluent Surrey in 2015.
Where do Sussex fit, then? “Somewhere in the middle ground,” Andrew says. “It’s never going to be a Test ground but is a well-run business and money has been invested in the ground. Is it as strong as everyone would like it to be? Probably not. There has been an enormous amount of change in the last two years, and a lot of real challenges.”
He is right: the challenges have been many and varied. The end-cycle of a high-achieving team and a few injuries brought relegation in 2015, the worst possible year, as only one county was to be promoted in 2016. Mark Robinson (who Andrew played with for Yorkshire seconds) left to coach England women, and stalwarts retired. Horsham Festival went under, deemed not financially sound; then, worst of all, the fast bowler Matthew Hobden, a friend to all and house-mate to some, died in an accident, aged 22. It was little surprise Sussex did not fill that sole promotion place. The salty Hove air was optimistic but the seagulls just seemed a little less chipper.
“You look at all that,” says Andrew, slowing, “and you think: ‘Woah.’ That’s a lot to take in. Lots of moving parts, each one sucking energy out of the people who make up the club. But we have to embrace the challenge and by far the most exciting thing for me is the growth of the next Sussex team – watching that develop. But it won’t happen overnight.”
The changes may not stop with Andrew’s arrival; the chairman, Jim May, is one of three board members up for re-election in March and there is talk he could be replaced by Jon Filby, a non-executive director.
Andrew knows his greatest task “is keeping Sussex relevant”. While he regularly states that sport has to be built from the bottom up, this is not about the local level, where last November Sussex became the first county to merge its cricket board – and the 245 clubs that come with it – and the county cricket club, a progressive move designed to integrate professionalism and participation. This is about the bigger picture, with Sussex one of three counties – Kent and Surrey being the others – to vote against (in their case, on the grounds of caution) the ECB’s plan for an eight-team T20 competition from 2020.
“We are not dead-set against change and know cricket needs to adapt,” he says, “but can we just have a bit more information? What does the season look like? Is there still a county T20 competition? Where’s the championship? How does it fit? What are the teams called? Who’s playing?
“We don’t want super-counties emerging, because then it’s them and us. Everyone wants the best for the game but the devil is in the detail when it’s this important. Self-interest is inevitable. We want to know Sussex has a big part to play in the future, so that in five years’ time counties haven’t disappeared and people look back and go: ‘Why the hell did you allow that to happen?’”
Even Andrew’s fiercest detractors would acknowledge he is the consummate politician and his stubbornness and competitive streak are strengths. He has form for brokering deals and finding that uneasy truce. He is a month from starting his new job but he has shown a bit of fire and plenty of understanding about the scene he is stepping into. It is, he insists, “not a minefield, it’s just modern sport. There is always a solution”. We will soon know if this is the naivety of the newbie or if English cricket’s T20 tussle is about to be shaken up by Sussex’s new big-hitter.
