One of Surrey’s finest servants off the field, Brian Downing, celebrates his 90th birthday today (April 12). Richard Spiller explains the enormous contribution he has made to cricket.
Brian and wife Shirley sitting with David Watts and Roger Harman (standing).
It’s rare to spot one of the movers and shakers of a national game up to his elbows in soapsuds.
But Brian Downing was never shy of getting his hands dirty – ok, clean – when his wife Shirley needed assistance doing the teas at Banstead Cricket Club, while their son Julian wheeled away bowling leg-spin out in the middle.
One of the most influential administrators in English cricket of the past half-century never forgot that the bread and butter tasks which keep clubs running are also the most important, especially when they come with cake as well.
Not that a bottle of Fairy Liquid will be on his birthday list when he turns 90 on April 12, although something bubbly is in order.
And there is plenty to toast in the life of a man who combined a highly successful business career with family life and made – in the words of former ECB Chair Lord MacLaurin – “an enormous contribution to the wellbeing of cricket’s economy”.
Downing joined the Surrey committee in 1968, a time when money was desperately tight for both the club and the game generally. Happily he found likeminded souls in Raman Subba Row, Bernie Coleman and Derek Newton – among others – who understood that cricket could not depend on gate receipts and traditional forms of income if it had any hope of surviving into the 21st century.
Forty years in marketing, advertising and distributing newspapers and magazines – rising to become the inaugural marketing director of Mirror Group Newspapers, IPC’s director of women’s magazines and then deputy CEO plus Chairing companies in United Newspapers – brought vast experience which was put at cricket’s disposal.
Surrey were early among the first county clubs to realise that promoting the game to expand operations off the field was key driver to securing sound finances, Downing’s chairmanship of the marketing sub-committee a crucial tool in almost three decades of committee work. His lively presentations at annual meetings – described by one veteran member as “the bit I wake up for” – were a demonstration of how the club were pushing new boundaries off the field.
Not surprisingly, his flair and knowhow attracted the attention of the Test & County Cricket Board – forerunner of the ECB – and he became the long-term successor of another Surrey stalwart, Bernie Coleman, playing a key role in three successive negotiations of TV rights packages which earned the game £186million.
He forged a highly profitable alliance with marketing director Terry Blake, who explained: “Brian’s profession involved selling advertising and he understood the value of that to cricket. And he understood how adding value for the companies advertising played such a crucial role.
“But there were so many other areas where he made a contribution. Brian came up with the idea of establishing plans centrally for counties to feed into, offering them a template to expand their own operations.
“Surrey had been the brand leaders in merchandising and communication but at some clubs they still regarded marketing as a job for an ex-pro who could sell to some of his old mates rather than employing people who had been specifically trained.”
Coleman had despaired at getting any money out of the BBC for televising cricket in the 1970s but Downing’s arrival on the national scene coincided with satellite broadcasters becoming established and seeing sport as a way to dramatically expand their operations.
Blake – nowadays the voice of The Kia Oval on match days – added: “Brian remembers coming away from the BBC in 1994 when we had secured £60million for four years, from Sky and BBC, which was a huge improvement. We celebrated with a half of beer and a ham sandwich!
“He had the vision to talk about the quantum leaps we could make in driving up our revenue.
“He was very good at talking up cricket’s broadcast value in the press prior to a negotiating period, which was a crucial public relations element.”
By the time Downing stepped down – he was awarded the OBE in 2000 – the ECB’s annual income had quintupled to £50m per year.
That money paid for a national plan which drove up the standard of the England team, not least making central contracts affordable.
Blake adds: “At the heart of it is Brian’s love of cricket – Ken Barrington was a great hero of his – and his ability to pull people together. On the Sunday of each Oval Test in the mid-90s we would invite all the ECB’s commercial partners to a hospitality box and Brian would bring round the PM, John Major, to meet the people backing the game.
“It’s hard to put a price on that.”
If his time as Surrey Chair in 1994-95 – when the club was in ferment – evokes few happy memories, Downing’s presidency in 2002-03 proved far more enjoyable although even that had its sticky moments. Hosting Pakistan president Pervez Musharaff saw him sat, a little uneasily, next to one of the world’s leading terrorist targets during the morning’s play in the England v Pakistan ODI before the extensive security detail whisked him away for another engagement.
Downing hasn’t forgotten that day: “We’re all used to having security precautions but that was very different. We had gun toting bodyguards in the committee room and around it. There’s a nice picture of myself with Musharaff and John Major but you can’t see the cavalry either side.”
He wondered whether his contribution to cricket might be very short when he was asked to give evidence to a committee set up in the mid-1960s chaired by Kent’s David Clark, looking into the future of county cricket.
“I was invited to Lord’s to present the way forward commercially for the game but pretty much everything I said was taken apart by Gubby Allen. I came home and sat there thinking what a waste of time it was.”
Happily, the MCC treasurer and archdeacon of conservatism was not wholly representative of thinking in the game.
“Raman was very supportive and understood what I was talking about. The game was close to bankrupt and we couldn’t carry on as we were or we wouldn’t have had a game.”
Like all sports, cricket has a consistent fight to maintain a high profile with followers and the media, achieving consensus among the different groups within the game never proving easy.
Downing explains: “I found it difficult and even intimidating at times trying to present new ideas to a room with 18 or 20 people in. If you can get a group of no more than five working together you can make much more progress. Commercially football is in a different realm to everyone else but cricket and rugby are next and we can help each other.”
Former ECB chief executive Tim Lamb paid tribute to Downing’s “wisdom and experience” while Maclaurin noted he “brought a shrewdness and professionalism to the game.”
From his home in Great Bookham – The Kia Oval is a bit of a stretch sometimes for legs which have carried him round for nine decades – Downing continues to take the closest interest in the game, whether it’s England’s fortunes or the progress of young players rising through the club and county game. Surrey’s triumph in winning the LV County Championship title last year thrilled him and he’s looking forward to the new campaign.
Happy birthday, Brian.
