Derbyshire on track to be one of the hosts for Women's World Cup 2017
The news of Derbyshire's success in gaining financial support from the City Council is a landmark in the club's history.
The council cabinet is to be asked, at its meeting on Wednesday, to approve a package of loans and grants that would guarantee the county club’s eligibility to apply to be one of six host cities of the prestigious Women's World Cup tournament in 2017 and allow it to press ahead with its own development plans.
It would include a £2m bridging loan so that a new media centre can be constructed next winter at the racecourse end of the 3aaa County Ground and a £410,000 loan from the council’s regeneration fund to cover the cost of buying the freehold of the Gateway Centre.
It is money spent ahead of ECB funding coming through and means that the club takes on short-term debt, but I have complete confidence in the people at the helm of our club and everyone else should have too.
We are no longer run by amateurs, well-meaning or otherwise, and in a couple of years time the ground will be unrecognisable from today, let alone the stark, unwelcoming place that it was for so many years.
All involved behind the scenes are to be congratulated on their efforts in gaining support for improvements that can only make the club more attractive for functions and events, in addition to ensuring that the Gateway Centre is used to maximum potential.
It is a wonderful news, and here's hoping that the council do one of its finest sporting institutions proud.
Not much else to report today, but I was interested to read in the Derby Telegraph towards the end of the week that Chris Grant feels that a franchise cricket T20 competition could run alongside the existing club T20 as well as a fifty-over and County Championship competition.
If they can find a space in the calendar to do that I will be impressed and have no objections whatsoever. What I don't want to see is my love of Derbyshire cricket being diluted through one replacing the other.
I don't see myself going to such games, but the target audience is families, as it is with the BBL and IPL, and I dare say there will be plenty of support for such a venture.
If it feeds down money to the club that I support, then it would be churlish to have objections, but I'd sooner watch Derbyshire, good and bad, rather than England or a World XI taking on Mars.