Kent’s Chief Executive Jamie Clifford believes the future is bright for the county after a couple of difficult years both on and off the pitch.

Clifford has presided over a period in Kent’s history that has seem some of the most changes at the St Lawrence Ground in Canterbury, whilst the playing side has seen familiar faces leave the club with fresh talent brought in to replace them.

Only last week the fixtures for 2012 were announced with Kent starting their season with a Championship game against Yorkshire at Headingley and Clifford told Kent Sports News how he felt the unveiling of next years calendar brought the new season much closer:

“Everyone looks forward to the fixtures coming out, the players, supporters and us trying to plan everything else around the game. When the fixtures are out it all starts to become real again.”

“At the end of a season there is always a period of reflection as to where we have got to and when the fixtures are out we can move on and start planning for the new year. You can start talking to commercial partners and the operations team can start mapping out the year ahead.”

The departure of Director of Cricket Paul Farbrace along with batsmen Joe Denly and Martin van Jaarsveld will see Kent start next season with a new Head Coach and some new batting talent.

One of those new faces is former Glamorgan batsman Mike Powell, whilst the bowling attack has been strengthened with the signing of former Nottinghamshire seamer Charlie Shreck and Clifford feels like it almost like a fresh start at Kent:

“We will have a new Head Coach and the ground redevelopment will be on another stage. We’ve always said that the past few years would be a time for patience as we try and rebuild the club. The playing side have gone through a period of transition.”

“When we get close to that first ball being bowled in April, expectations will be as high as ever and I for one am excited.”

The job of replacing Paul Farbrace still continues for Clifford and the club with a shortlist of six people being interviewed, but the Chief Executive admitted they wouldn’t be rushed into making a decision:

“I have been consistant in saying we want the best person and the timetable will be ruled by that objective rather than us needing someone by Christmas. It won’t be the be all and end all if we don’t have the position filled by then, but it is something we would like to get sorted as there are plenty of other things to be sorting too.”

“We won’t rush any decision though as we’re desperate to make sure we get the right person for Kent.”

One of Kent’s targets for the next season is to see if they can secure the services of the likes of Robert Key, Geraint Jones, Darren Stevens and James Tredwell who will all be out of contract at the end of the summer and Clifford admitted that there was no imminent news on the futures of some of the clubs senior players:

“There is nothing to report publicly. I have a policy of trying not to discuss conversations between employer and employee publicly until such a time that something has been concluded.”

“I have made no secret of the fact we are keen to speak to these guys as we’d like to be planning two to three seasons ahead, so that process is underway.”

Next season will see cricket competing with both the Euro 2012 Championships in Poland and Ukraine during June and July, with the Olympics coming to London in August.

Kent have already seen two of their Twenty 20 fixtures moved to accomodate England playing France and Sweden in the football, but Clifford remains positive that Kent can still see fans come to watch cricket even with other sport happening:

“Taking the football first, we have only got five home Twenty 20 fixtures in 2012 and I have made no secret in the past that we should play as many as possible, so in the five opportunities that we do have we should maximise ticket sales.”

“When the football World Cup went up against the T20 we noticed a massive drop in attendance, so we are realistic enough to know that we needed to move our fixtures to give ourselves every chance to generate as much revenue as possible.”

“As for the Olympics, you could say that it clashes with Canterbury week, but the reality is that not many people from the county of Kent will have tickets for the Olympics and there should hopefully be plenty of people in the South East wanting to watch some sport.”

“A study conducted after the Sydney Olympics showed that attendances at all sporting fixtures during and around the Olympics in Australia went up, so there could well be a feel good factor around sport.”

“Personally, I think there are more opportunities than threats due to the clash.”

The Chief Executive has seen out two years in his role at the club and has seen some changes both on and off the field.

One of the most notable changes has to be to the facilities at Canterbury and Clifford feels that there is more to come: “I am optimistic, but I’m a realist. I do understand that there is still a lot of work to do. We have got the redevelopment under way and that was crucial in financial terms.”

“We were in a very difficult spot in September last year as we hadn’t sold the land to Bellway and the redevelopment hadn’t started. If that hadn’t of happened then we could have missed out on ECB grants and that could have seen us in a very difficult place.”

“Where we are now though is that we have seen things picking up commercially, which is very good news and I think our promotion has been a bit slicker with things like online ticket purchasing.”

“So, I think we are doing lots of things a bit better, but there is no sense of complacency. I try and make sure we move the organisation forward every month in some way. If you do that you can make some significant changes over a period of time.”

“I am under no illusion though. Things are tough out there and trying to turn our position around in the middle of a recession isn’t easy. I can’t praise our staff aand players more highly though for the work and commitment that they’ve shown in getting behind the plan to try and make the future of Kent County Cricket Club as bright as possible.”