Matt Prior: ‘My cycling team must be open, not media-trained robots’

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/feb/17/matt-prior-cycling-media-trained-robots

Version 0 of 1.

“Having lived in the England dressing room for a number of years I watched us go from an open, accessible team to being closed off,” admits a reflective Matt Prior. “I saw the negative effect that had on our fanbase and the public perception towards us.”

As the deposed England wicketkeeper turns a longstanding passion for professional cycling into a career in the sport as the co-founder and chief executive of ONE Pro Cycling, he is being guided by a public relations lesson learned from his Test career – one he hopes is not finished – with dreams of building and maintaining a groundswell of support for a new British team of riders.

“I want this team to be open. I want the riders to go out and show off their character and personalities. I don’t want to see media-trained robots,” he says, with more than a nod to the back end of an era of English cricket under the head coach Andy Flower that reaped three Ashes wins but ultimately ended with a humiliating 5-0 defeat in Australia, the shockwaves of which are still being felt today.

Prior, 32, is recovering from an operation on his torn left achilles last September, one he admits leaves his cricketing future hanging in the balance. Will months of rehab and recovery at his county Sussex prove to be in vain? Can a player who has not picked up a bat since hooking Ishant Sharma to midwicket in the crushing 95-run defeat to India at Lord’s last summer realistically countenance a return to the England set-up?

“I’ve no idea if I can still bat but then I couldn’t in that match either. I can only get better right?” he says jokingly before adding: “Realistically the West Indies tour in April is far too soon. I’m still learning how to run. I might not play cricket again but I’m hopeful that’s not the case. I’m looking to get back to full fitness and back to where I was. The achilles tear was so severe that if I get my return wrong, it could affect not only my cricket career but my life after cricket. I need to get it right.”

Prior’s new business venture, a start-up professional cycling team who will compete at UCI continental level from early April – two tiers below such as Team Sky – has proved a useful distraction in the winter months of rehab in Hove. And the ambition to join Sir Dave Brailsford and co on the World Tour within five years, while lofty, is genuine.

But the business model, Prior insists, is different. Instead of selling naming rights to a title sponsor, the plan is to remain identifiable as ONE Pro Cycling throughout. And through tiered membership, the team intend to make their facilities fully accessible to the public by offering training experiences that allow amateurs to ride alongside the pros. Enjoyment, hard work and openness are among the team’s buzzwords, and their origins can be found in Prior’s experience of success in Test cricket – chiefly the victorious 2010-11 Ashes tour – with a warning of what happens when the latter falls by the wayside.

“In 2009 the England team took the decision to play our cricket in the manner of a club side. To have fun and enjoy the moment,” he says. “Of course we wanted to work harder than anyone else – there is a professionalism there when you’re playing Test cricket but the environment behind it was relaxed. If you’re not enjoying what you’re doing, you’re not going to reach your full potential – I’m a huge believer in that.

“Graeme Swann’s video diaries on that [2010-11] tour were a great example of it. They showed the team at its best. It’s important for any sports team to have that openness, because people warm to it. But somehow we came away from that. We became less accessible, we didn’t put ourselves out there in the same ways – the right way. People saw us as closed-off and you could sense it in the dressing room.

“I don’t want to speak about that dressing room too much – it will just spark a war of words again. But the main point is that ONE Pro Cycling want to be like that England team was in 2010-11.”

Such a war of words inevitably refers, in part, to the publication of Kevin Pietersen’s autobiography last October, in which Prior found himself among the chief targets amid allegations of bullying in the camp. Pietersen painted a less than flattering picture of Prior, the self-styled “Big Cheese”, and even used his love of cycling against him when he sarcastically wrote: “If Cheese wasn’t a top genius cricketer Cheese would have been a world-class cyclist. Obviously.”

“All the gear, no idea,” was the not-so-subtle gist, coming just weeks before details of his cycling venture were made public. Like Pietersen, who has his own clothing label and, until its recent closure, ran a children’s hairdressing salon in Notting Hill, Prior is simply turning his personal passion into a career away from and eventually beyond professional cricket.

“KP’s book didn’t dent my enthusiasm for cycling,” he says. “If anything it simply showed how passionate I am about it. And I’ll be off the bike. I’m CEO and that’s what I’ll be doing. I’m not going to pretend I’m a pro cyclist. I have huge respect for what these guys do and I’ll only look stupid if I try to get involved that way.

“So now I’m going into the business of professional cycling and I wake up every day loving what I’m doing.”