CMJ: Caddick goes out to bat for future of Headingley (25 July 1997)

Friday 25 July 1997

Caddick goes out to bat for future of Headingley

By Christopher Martin-Jenkins

LONG delays for rain at Headingley yesterday gave Yorkshire members plenty of time to contemplate a renewed campaign to save Test cricket at the Leeds venue.

A brochure was circulated around the ground by the Leeds Cricket, Football and Athletic Company Ltd (C F & A). Their aim is to persuade members of the cricket club to vote for a redevelopment of Headingley which would keep county and Test cricket in its traditional Yorkshire home - they have played there since 1891 - rather than moving to a green-field site at Durkar, near Wakefield.

The history of the dispute is long and, like all things Yorkshire, often bitter. At its centre are Paul Caddick, a property and construction millionaire who was also a lock forward for Headingley RFC, and Sir Lawrence Byford, president of Yorkshire CCC and a former policeman. Caddick is the sole shareholder of C F & A, who own the cricket and the adjoining rugby grounds at Headingley, and he stands to lose much if Yorkshire move.

Yorkshire themselves, however, will certainly lose Test cricket - given that Durham can fill the gap it could easily be for as long as 20 years - if they go ahead with the move, which is to be financed by a mixture of money from the National Lottery, Wakefield City Council, EC development funds and pri- vate in vestment.

Yorkshire cricket is inextricably linked with Headingley and although the cricket club have never owned the ground they have played here happily enough until relatively recent times when the cricketers accused C F & A of taking all the prof- its from catering and ground advertising.

C F & A countered that they also absorb all the overheads, giving the county the chance to make profits from other cricketing sources at an unrealistically small rent.

Caddick is asking that Yorkshire officials talk to him about continuing at Headingley with a redeveloped ground and a renegotiated lease (as things stand Yorkshire are bound by a lease agreement which still has 84 years to run). Yorkshire officials say there can be no going back on the commitment to Wakefield.

Caddick denied any suggestion that what looks like a classical collision of implacable Yorkshire wills amounts to a personality clash between himself and Sir Lawrence By- ford, president of Yorkshire.

"He is pursuing his aims through his love of cricket. I respect that, but in my view his business plan is wrong and he is misguided," said Caddick.

Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/)