Derbyshire delight at membership surge

By Andy Wilson

Promotion has sparked a surge of support in Derbyshire, with membership numbers already more than 20 per cent up on the total figure for last season.

The prospect of watching the county play Division One cricket in the LV= County Championship for the first time since 2000 and the signing of Shivnarine Chanderpaul as overseas player have undoubtedly been factors. So too has the offer of discounted rates for those who bought their memberships before the end of January under their Early Bird initiative.

The overall effect has been that, with two months still to go until the start of the new campaign, Derbyshire have already taken more money through memberships than they did in 2012 and a good proportion of those who have signed up are either lapsed members or are joining for the first time.

Early Bird, a scheme Derbyshire ran for the first time this year, offered discounts of £15 in most categories of membership for early renewals and, at its end on January 31, 975 adult memberships had been sold, of which 199 were not members in either 2011 or 2012.

The county offered current members £50 cash back if they introduced a new member and 51 took advantage of this. In addition, 374 junior members have registered and, with life members and honorary life members, that takes the total membership to 1,481 so far, as opposed to just under 1,200 last year.

The figures may be modest compared to many of the traditionally better supported counties but, for Derbyshire, they are significant. Many members still prefer to renew nearer opening day and are set to swell the overall figure further and chairman Chris Grant is delighted by the supporters’ response.

“I think our Early Bird pricing might have pulled forward a few purchases and we have still got a lot of hard work to do but this is very encouraging,” Grant said.



Date: 02/02/2013 13:48:33 by Andy Wilson
In: Today | Derbyshire |