England World Cup legend Sir Geoff Hurst spoke at a lunch in January and was followed by former Welsh and British & Irish Lions star Dafydd James.
Next to the club’s crease is former England cricket captain Michael Vaughan, due at the end of May.
Founder and award-winning sports journalist, author and broadcaster Ian Stafford came up with the idea for The Sporting Club six years ago – mixing the best motivational sports speakers with a club for business professionals.
‘It’s a business club, it’s a members’ club, but it’s called The Sporting Club because sport is the world’s greatest common denominator,’ he said. ‘We use sports speakers rather than business speakers, because although business speakers are good, we haven’t followed their stories.
'If you’re a sports star, the highs and the lows are magnified. Sports star stories are analogies for life – winning and losing, success and failure.’
140 people attended the lunch with Sir Geoff Hurst, the last surviving member of England’s World Cup team, including the Lt-Governor Richard Cripwell.
It was not Mr Stafford’s first venture to the island, having brought over boxer Sugar Ray Leonard for a similar event three years ago.
‘But that was at the height of Covid. Now we’ll be looking to do a big event in May with Michael Vaughan, who will be celebrating the 20th anniversary of the famous Ashes win, another big one in September, and probably another big one in December. In between that there will be other bits and bobs, coffee mornings, business breakfasts, drinks and canape evenings.’
Mr Stafford has recently staged events with Usain Bolt and Gareth Southgate, and has worked in the past with Dame Kelly Holmes, Sir Steve Redgrave and Gary Player.
The Sporting Club now has hubs all over the UK and Mr Stafford said he has plans to take the club international.
‘We started in London and Dubai is not far off,’ he said. ‘The idea is that we’re going to set up a hub here in Guernsey. We’ve now finalised a location at the Old Government House which Sporting Club members, and not just those based here, can use on a regular basis for meetings. And people who join here, when they fly over to the mainland, can use all our clubs and can go to all our events.’
He was keen to stress the events were not just for men.
‘We want to be as diverse as possible, and bring female sporting stars to speak too,’ he said.
‘We regularly do big lunches with big name stars. People come to them because they love to enjoy themselves. But there’s a lot of client entertainment, and there’s a lot of business development, because you are surrounded by like-minded people who like to do business, and who like their sport.’
More information on the club, and Michael Vaughan’s visit on 29 May, can be found here.
You need to be logged in to comment. If you had an account on our previous site, you can migrate your old account and comment profile to this site by visiting this page and entering the email address for your old account. We'll then send you an email with a link to follow to complete the process.