Trent Bridge Community Sports Trust Overview

Community Sports Trust Manager Tracey Francis has grand plans at Trent Bridge.

Having spent two years at the helm of the department and the previous four  as the East Midlands Development Manager for Sport England, the Gedling-born sports enthusiast is determined to breathe new life into the club’s community output and develop structures to benefit all aspects of Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club, Trent Bridge and the Nottinghamshire Cricket Board.

“Our aspiration is to be one of the leading counties in terms of community involvement and to ensure that we receive our performance related bonuses from the ECB and that they come to us to find models of best practice,” she says.

“My remit is around community development but there’s a lot of connectivity with other departments.

“Trent Bridge is primarily known as a cricket facility but it can become so much more. We can bring new parties into cricket participation and introduce new audiences by working in different sports.

“We have a hard-earned reputation and I’m here to further enhance it and take the community team to the next level.

“It’s not just about hitting targets, it’s about improving our processes, reaching our community milestones and developing partnerships with the local authorities. It will be a long-term process.”

A keen tag-rugby player, Tracey is the captain of the John Players’ Second XI women’s hockey team where she has driven the setup of a junior section. Although new to cricket, she has a solid grounding in sports administration having worked in public sector development roles in inner-city Nottingham and rural mid-Wales.

“I’m a sports development specialist but cricket is very new to me so I’m learning the ropes of how the ECB operate and I’m ready for the challenge of cricket development,” she says.

“My passion is around sport for young people and for women and girls and we’ll look at why our women and girls section sits outside our current infrastructure. We should be developing cricket irrelevant to age, ability and gender.

“I enjoy to coming to the ground and seeing a child’s face light up as they watch the Notts players in action. We want to reach a new audience and create new participants in sport. It all starts by working with young people.”

Tracey worked alongside the club’s City Development officer Keith Tongue during her time at Nottingham City Council, a period of her career that stood her in good stead for life at Trent Bridge.

‘As a club, we’ve got real aspirations and some innovative schemes in the pipeline to help the community team to achieve something quite special and take Nottinghamshire to the top of the leader board in cricket development,’ she says.

‘We want to create a legacy of community sport that’s self-sustainable. If we do our job properly we should push a lot of the emphasis to our community clubs who should be in a position to deliver the programmes themselves but it’s down to us to lead the way.’

Tracey’s appointment in 2008 ended an extensive search by Chief Executive Derek Brewer who was keen to ensure that the club’s community output was enhanced.

“We take our corporate social responsibilities very seriously and for many young people, the community team will be their first point of contact with the club,” he said.

“Having the right leadership in place is critical and we’re delighted that Tracey has joined us with a brief to take things to the next level.

“She will have the support a strong, experienced team in her department and I am sure they will achieve success.”

Tracey heads the community and development department at Trent Bridge:

Tracey Francis – Community Sports Trust Manager Chloe Gibson – Sports Administrator Eddie Burke – Player Pathway Co-Ordinator Keith Tongue – City Development Officer Alan Harrison – Schools Development Officer Martyn Dobson – Cricket Development Officer Mark Clifford – Positive Futures Co-Ordinator