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Former nemesis of Britain's 'unprofitable' rural railway lines, Dr Richard Beeching, 94, is - literally -back from the dead, and the new head honcho of Newcastle University Sport.
SE: Many people had major business problems in the late 80s and early 90s which threatened their careers, but you experienced something much worse...
RB: Yes, I actually died.
SE: There's a school of thought that that would be terminal to a career.
RB: Yes, that's true, but I would say that the best business people are the resilient ones.
SE: Yes, indeed. So, Dr Beeching, broadly, what are your plans for university sport?
RB: It's basically got to prove it's cost effective. Every sport will be given a chance, but at the end of the day if a sport, say CRICKET, isn't performing, well, it'll have to go.
SE: Sounds worrying.
RB: Business is a ruthless past time.
SE: You mentioned cricket...
RB: For cricket we've decided to make some changes. We've allowed Close House to be closed down and turned it into a car park without telling anyone; we've not replaced the Cochrane Park groundsman, so one groundsman will be responsible for that ground and Heaton; and we're going to escalate our access charges for teams to play and reduce the opportunity for getting discounts. Basically in the short term we see cricket as subsidising other sports which require little pitch maintenance, and our new gym.
SE: Isn't that penalising the many people who want to play cricket?
RB: Yeeeees, but we don't want to penalise the golfers or the football players do we now! Golfers in particular are a wonderful cash cow because golf is less about recreation and more about business!
SE: So, in the longer term, is the university trying to phase out cricket?
RB: No comment. But, yes.
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