‘Acceptance of mediocrity’: Middlesex gaze south enviously with golden years long gone

Sam Robson is one of only two members of Middlesex’s 2016 title-winning side still at the club. Photograph: Jay Patel/SPP/Shutterstock

“I understand the former players feel frustrated that performance isn’t what it was,” says the club chair, Richard Sykes. Frustrated isn’t the word. Furious might be. One I talk to for this article says that club have been “toxic off the field for some time”, another says that he believes they are facing an “existential threat”.

There is a lot of talent. They have a crop of young players who have come through the local system, and Robson describes the trio of Sebastian Morgan, Naavya Sharma and Caleb Falconer, as “definitely three of the more promising young players that we’ve had at the club for many years”. But Ramprakash says he worries that good as they are, they may start to ask if they’re “at the right club to pursue their ambitions in the game”. They wouldn’t be the first. In recent years, the club have lost John Simpson, Martin Andersson, Steve Eskinazi and Ethan Bamber. It’s one thing to see players go, another to see them improve when they do.

Simpson has grown into one of the most successful wicketkeeper batsmen in the country as captain of Sussex, and the batting averages of Eskinazi and Andersson have almost doubled since they moved.

At a certain point, reporting all this becomes a study in the viciousness of parish politics. Middlesex’s have become especially messy. In 2023 they were sanctioned for financial mismanagement, and put into special measures by the ECB. Since then they became embroiled in one interminable legal wrangle with their former CEO Richard Goatley, and then another with his successor Andrew Cornish, who is currently suspended on full pay awaiting the results of an investigation into alleged misconduct, which he denies.

Roland Butcher and Middlesex captain Mike Gatting get the bubbly flowing after the club seal the 1985 County Championship title – one of seven in 18 seasons from 1976 to 1993. Photograph: Patrick Eagar/Popperfoto/Getty Images

They’ve also burned through three coaches in the space of a year, after sacking Richard Johnson, hiring Dane Vilas as a temporary replacement, and then appointing Peter Fulton this year. All this was done against the recommendations of at least some members of their own cricket committee, which had included Gatting, Ramprakash and other former players. Sykes says the cricket committee was “refreshed” last year. Others say it was “disbanded”. Ramprakash, who had been working as a consultant batting coach, quit in complaint against “the apparent absence of transparent process and accountability in recent cricket related decisions”.

“We want the club to do better,” Ramprakash explains. “I think there’s been an acceptance of mediocrity for quite some time. And I think it’s a great shame. And of course, the people who signed that letter, when they were players, they set high standards, and I think that they look at the club right now and they don’t see particularly high standards.” Ramprakash is quick and keen to stress that the letter wasn’t aimed at the players, despite how it was reported at the time. Robson is adamant that he and the rest of the men in the changing room never imagined it was.

Two separate independent reports have been commissioned into the running of the club in the last seven years. One, by the chair of the governance and ethics committee, raised concerns about the club’s administration, the other about their cricket, and in particular the pathways through the age grade to the academy and senior teams. That one is still used as a point of reference at the club, even though the man who was in charge of those pathways for much of that time, Alan Coleman, is now the director of cricket.

The entire club seems to be caught in an awkward position. Lord’s, of course, is one of their biggest advantages. But they don’t own it, which means they rely on the England and Wales Cricket Board for approximately 60% of their funding. The good news is that given the private investment in the Hundred, there is lots of that to go around. Except the club are caught in a peculiar catch-22. The ECB insists that the Hundred money can only be used to pay down debt or invest in capital assets. Middlesex have no debts and no capital assets. They’ve been allowed £2m to top up their reserves, but otherwise they can’t get at any of the £24m available. Even though, as one former player said, “they don’t have a pot to piss in”.

Mike Brearley (third left) leads his team on to the field at the Oval in September 1976, as Middlesex march towards the title. Photograph: William H Alden/Getty Images

“We don’t have our own ground so we can’t commercialise anything or generate revenues,” Sykes says. “Until this year Middlesex has never even had any incentive to sell a single ticket because MCC bore all that financial upside and risk and just paid us a fixed fee.” But Sykes has a plan. He believes the club need to build their own ground in the outer reaches of north London. Last year the club spent £400,000 trying to drum up private investment in it. They had a partner lined up, only to find out at the last minute that the deal would have broken their agreement with the ECB.

Sykes is convinced it is the right idea; no one else I talk to seems to agree with him. Regardless, the only way to do it would be to persuade the membership to demutualise the club, which everyone thinks is extremely unlikely to happen. “We’re going to spend the next several months holding members’ forums leading up to an indicative vote at the next AGM,” Sykes insists. He is adamant that it is the only way “or we just accept the alternative of managing a steady decline”. Some who love the club would say that’s already well under way.