Yorkshire Get Chance To Stay At Headingley (30 Oct 1996)

30 October 1996

Yorkshire get chance to stay at Headingley

By Michael Fisher

THE new owners of Headingley will offer Yorkshire County Cricket Club a cash incentive to stay at the ground to help secure the future of both codes of rugby at the club.

Yorkshire businessman and rugby union fan Paul Caddick, who yesterday completed his takeover of Leeds Cricket, Football and Athletic Company, who control the ground, admitted: "The viability of the site is clear - it can be maintained quite easily with the cricket but it is more difficult without it."

Caddick has persuaded Gary Hetherington to leave Sheffield Eagles to become the new chief executive, concentrating mainly on building up the rugby league club.

He is also in talks with Leeds Rugby Union Club, who have a five-year ground-sharing agreement and he hopes to at least bring the two organisations closer.

But there is no doubt much of the 48-year-old property developer`s immediate effort will be spent wooing Yorkshire to cancel their plans to build a new cricket stadium in Wakefield.

"We shall be looking at ways of making Headingley viable without the cricket club and personally I don`t believe they will move - it is unrealistic for any government or lottery fund to support a #50 million bid for a five-day-a-year event," Caddick said.

After the barbed comment, however, came the olive branch to Yorkshire president Sir Lawrence Byford: "In the past Yorkshire were tenants with very little financial benefit from the site. Perhaps with a new management structure and new arrangement they may be able to benefit more.

"I shall be asking Sir Lawrence if he would like to stay under those conditions and if so, how we can adjust the conditions to suit him."

The immediate job of turning round the rugby league club falls to Hetherington, who flew home from the Great Britain tour of New Zealand where he was assistant manager, to attend the press briefing.

He promised money would be made available to buy new players for a team that struggled near the bottom of Super League most of last season. "The team has been devastated and needs major surgery quickly but all the decisions will be with the long-term benefits of the club uppermost in mind," he said.

As to the rugby union club, Caddick said: "I would like the two clubs to come closer together but that doesn`t necessarily mean joining together.

"I don`t believe the two codes will merge but I do believe they can co-exist happily."

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