Worcestershire CCC are back in the top flight on the pitch – and we are upgrading our matchday scorecard in a similar fashion.
For just £1, supporters will be able to purchase a four page score-card and will also receive a copy of the latest edition of the County 365 quarterly magazine.
The latest version of the scorecard is similar in design – and price – to the highly rated edition produced by Somerset.
The £1 price, which is also charged by other counties, will assist with covering the not insignificant production costs of the scorecard and County 365 and still represents a bargain compared to the charges made by football and rugby clubs for matchday productions.
The county have also invested significantly in new printing equipment which will ensure a better quality of scorecard.
Worcestershire commercial director Jon Graham said: "A decision was taken a number of years ago that we stop doing a match-day programme. At that time, the way the fixture list was put together, by the time you printed one programme it was out of date.
"It wasn't really giving something the fans wanted and also it was cost prohibitive.
"For three years now,we've been producing County 365 which is a quarterly magazine and that has been really well received, a really well produced piece of work.
"But we are mindful that scorecards certainly last season were probably not befitting a Division One cricket club so we've invested money in making sure what people receive is something a little bit different and of a higher standard.
"It will contain copy on the previous day's play and the usual updated stats on the match situation.
"I do feel last year, we didn't get many things wrong but the scorecards was one of them.
"With that in mind, I wanted to see what 'best in class' looked like. One of the counties we feel is comparable to us is Somerset, same sort of location and real vibrant membership.
"They produce a scorecard for each day, they change it for each format of the game, and we have researched those guys really closely and we've come up with our own take on it.
"But the only way you can really get to something of that quality is by asking for a fee that eseentially covers the cost of putting the thing together. They charge £1 for theirs and that is fair value for money."
Graham added: "Producing County 365 and these scorecards, there is a considerable cost and, whilst we are not going to get into the realms of the rugby and football clubs that will be charging £3, £4, £5, we will be looking to charge £1.
"For that £1 you will get your scorecard and a copy of County 365 and that is just going to assist the production costs of doing both of those things.
"Again we are not looking to make a huge amount of profit out of it, but every member will agree the club shouldn't be doing things that continue to lose money.
"We were getting to a situation with scorecards last season where we printing off over a thousand when there were probably only 500 people in the ground.
"So I feel introducing the pack of a new-look scorecard and County 365, certainly for day one of any game, now represents good value for money. We have invested in new printing equipment to the tune of a lot of money to ensure the quality is higher.
"The 365 edition that went out to membership will be available for the Yorkshire game and there will be a new edition for the Somerset game and then there will be another one towards the end of May for T20."
Graham is also aware of the need to ensure scorecards are available to members to purchase as soon as is feasibly possible on the morning of games.
He said: "We had a lot of feedback last season about scorecards not being available for the start of play. There was one game when we didn't get the opposition team until the toss.
"It just makes it very difficult when you are having to produce 1,000 scorecards and if I was a member and hadn't got my scorecard by the start of play, I'd be frustrated.
"The ECB have put out a directive that all counties need to give out their squads 24 hours before the start of the game.That will make our jobs a whole lot easier.
"We are not going to second guess the starting eleven. We will put in the 13 or so and that's what will appear in the day one scorecard and we will update that for days two, three or four."
