Essex’s bid, which was made along with the College of Essex, drew assist from the cricket boards of Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, Suffolk and Norfolk, so enabling the membership to be most well-liked to different native bids within the South East of England – most notably Middlesex, but in addition Kent and Northamptonshire – and be a part of Surrey in securing Tier 1 standing within the London area.
“For Essex to be chosen as one of many eight is big for us, simply by way of notion,” Stephenson instructed ESPNcricinfo. “The partnership with the College will allow the workforce to utilize their experience in sports activities science, and likewise use their services to coach, and that takes a bit little bit of strain off us financially.
“It simply amplifies the area actually, since you go from East London all the best way to Norfolk, it’s enormous. East London’s an enormous catchment space for us, as is East Anglia. It can make it possible for we’ve got a very sturdy participant pathway, with an enormous pool of gamers to select from. It additionally permits us to concentrate on making Essex the No.1 area in England for girls and women cricket, and for sports activities typically.”
Except for Somerset, whose residence floor at Taunton has had long-standing connections with ladies’s cricket, Essex are the one non-major match venue of the eight Tier 1 golf equipment, with Chelmsford’s present capability of roughly 5,000 being comfortably the smallest.
Stephenson, nonetheless, believes that the bottom’s intimate nature will probably be a advantage within the brief time period because the membership seeks to develop alongside the ladies’s recreation, however in the long run, he expects the announcement to kickstart their redevelopment plans. Session has already begun with native residents and Chelmsford Metropolis Council, with the goal of doubling the capability to 10,000 by the point of the lads’s T20 World Cup in 2030.
“I did assume that the majority of [the bids] would go to the worldwide venues, however to be picked out on the power of our bid, it actually exhibits the power of the membership,” Stephenson mentioned.
“It can hyperlink into our improvement plans as a result of what’s held the membership again has been the shortage of funding within the floor,” he added. “There’ve been quite a lot of stop-starts, however we’re assured in our masterplan, and the industrial prospects referring to the ladies’s recreation are enormous. It is a perfect floor for girls’s cricket, however we do must develop the bottom for future-proofing, and likewise to diversify our earnings stream.
“It will enable us to construct up-to-date services for gamers and officers, whereas making it a hub of the area. Our companions and sponsors have already expressed an curiosity in getting concerned, so it is actually a superb alternative.”
Chelmsford’s infrastructure has remained largely unaltered for the reason that membership first moved into the bottom within the Nineteen Sixties, and provided that it’s boxed in on three sides by the River Can, a serious street and a housing property, the alternatives for growth are restricted to the south-east nook across the pavilion and indoor college.
Nonetheless, the membership’s ambition was piqued final season by its profitable internet hosting of an Eire-Bangladesh ODI collection, which drew enthusiastic assist notably from East London’s Bangladeshi group. With their Tier 1 Girls’s standing locked in till 2028, and with the Girls’s World Cup because of be held in England in 2026, Stephenson is assured that the bottom might be able to host extra main matches within the close to future.
“If we will get a spade within the floor subsequent yr, by 2030 the ladies’s recreation could have grown exponentially, and hopefully we’ll be able to host a World Cup match for the lads in 2030. However our instant focus clearly is the Tier 1 ladies’s workforce. We simply need to make it possible for we construct the services that ensures we can provide them the very best expertise.”
In latest seasons, Essex’s fame had been clouded by allegations of historic racist abuse, which have been upheld in December in a report by Katherine Newton KC, after the membership had been fined £50,000 by the ECB in 2023. However whereas Yorkshire’s bid for Tier 1 ladies’s standing has been deferred till 2027, partly as a consequence of their very own high-profile racism scandal, Stephenson mentioned he felt the success of Essex’s bid was a vindication of the motion the membership had taken to confront the errors of the previous.
“It’s pleasing that the ECB recognise that we’ve got handled the scenario that we have been confronted with,” he mentioned. “I believe they really feel happy on the actions we have taken, and now we will focus completely on the long run. Now the membership is shifting in an important course, and that’s notably satisfying.”
Andrew Miller is UK editor of ESPNcricinfo. @miller_cricket
