The career of Martin Gerrard has gone full circle The career of Martin Gerrard, the former Gloucestershire left-arm seam bowler, has gone full circle. Gerrard graduated with a degree in construction and worked in the construction industry before he joined Gloucestershire in 1991. After three enjoyable years with Gloucestershire Gerrard moved into recruitment with construction his area of speciality but he is now a director of Heelstone Developments Ltd, a project and construction management company specialising in the hospitality and hotel sector. ” Going back into the depths of time I left university with a degree in construction degree and I started my working life with various construction companies in and around the South West,” Gerrard says. ” When the initial crash of the early 1990s came a lot of people were laid off within the construction industry and it was at that time that I actually became a professional cricketer with Gloucestershire. ” Once I had finished my time with Gloucestershire I went back to the construction industry and I worked for a major national construction recruitment company. ” I then set up my own recruitment business which I ran very successfully for around six years and got to the stage where I employed eight or nine staff and had a turnover, at its height, of about £ 1.7 million. ” We dealt with large national accounts but you could see that the recession was about to start so I needed a change of focus.” With a friend, Howard Pearson, Gerrard set up Heelstone in February 2013 and the company has already been involved in a number of major projects including a significant involvement in the design of the new Double Tree for Hilton at Hampshire’s Ageas Bowl in Southampton. Other projects include hotels constructed for Hilton and IHG, an extension to an existing operational hotel then converted to the Double Tree brand at Cadbury Country Club in Bristol, a Hampton by Hilton at Exeter airport and the installation of an Indigo at the Cube for IHG in Birmingham city centre. Gerrard has retained an interest in cricket and is a regular attender at Gloucestershire’s past players’ days. Although his career in county cricket was a short one, Gerrard believes that his stint with Gloucestershire gave him skills that proved useful in developing a successful business career after cricket. ” Cricket gives you a good sound base working in a team,” he says. ” You also encounter business people throughout your playing career on the hospitality side, you get involved in other players’ benefit years, you are attending dinners or lunches and you are always inter-acting with the general public. ” You make some great contacts through having been a professional sportsman. It does give you a footing and background. ” I do fully appreciate that it is difficult for professional sportsmen to be able to make the transition when they finish playing into the business world, which is why what the PCA does is so good really. ” Having worked before I played cricket made a massive difference. I was lucky in some respects, unlucky in other respects, but I didn’t begin my cricket career until I was 23. ” I was lucky enough to come out of my education and already have a degree so I had that to fall back on. ” If you are taken on as a professional cricketers at 16, 17 or 18 and play for 10 years, it’s difficult to get a footing on the business ladder. ” The way that I did it, I was fortunate in that respect even though it meant me coming to the game a bit later than most.” {{ak_sharing}}
