Photo Credit: Professional Cricketers’ Association
Part of PCA Futures Week, former Worcestershire bowler reveals his second dream job.
To have one dream job in life is special but two is very rare. That’s why former Worcestershire bowler Graeme Cessford considers himself very fortunate.
Whilst working in air traffic control for the RAF, Cessford was picked up by the Pears after impressing in trials that he was invited to by the late Damian D’Oliveira.
For two season he ‘lived the dream’ as a professional cricket on an elite athlete scheme from the RAF before returning to work there.
Fast forward to 2022 and Cessford has just landed his second ‘dream job’ as an Event Technician working with the Formula One teams.
During an in-depth interview for Futures Week, a PCA initiative designed to encourage its members to actively think about career transitions, the 39-year-old spoke about landing the new role at Bspoke Global Networks:
“I’ve been very fortunate in my life to get my second dream job after playing cricket, it’s all very exciting because I think I’m pencilled in for 14 of the races next year.
“We work in a small team and there’s five of us that set everything up, it’s very much like working in cricket, living and eating with each other whilst out on the road. I’m really enjoying it and it’s great fun.
“We provide all the networks and the data to the teams with Wi-Fi and 5G. The cars are like big computers so they send massive amounts of data back to the database for everyone in the garage to access.
“Travelling around the world with the teams in brilliant, I’m back for a week and then I’m flying out to Brazil for the race out there,” he said.
“The PCA were very helpful to me in offering help and advice which really got me through that stage in my life.”
GRAEME CESSFORD
However, it hasn’t always been a smooth ride for Cessford as he landed a job he wasn’t enjoying after his playing career and is thankful to the PCA for helping him through that time and supporting him with his business ventures. In 2016, he created Yearone, the custom made flip flop company, alongside his job as an Air Traffic Controller.
“There was loads of assistance from the PCA for me, there was one time in my life where I was working with drones in Syria and Iraq, I was controlling them out of a porter cabin in Lincoln.
“If I’m honest, that job nearly killed me because I was having to deal with some very unpleasant things. The PCA were very helpful to me in offering help and advice which really got me through that stage in my life,” he said.
The former quick bowler was glad that he chased his dream to play professional cricket and urges others to do the same, whilst highlighting the importance of a second career.
“It was an honour to play professionally, I was lucky that I had a career before I played cricket. I always wanted to play cricket but I kept getting injured when I was younger, it was actually the training that I was doing in the RAF that got me fitter again and able to bowl more consistently.
“I was very lucky that I had this career to fall back on my career after my cricket. I would always say just find something that you enjoy doing. If you’ve got a dream then chase it,” Cessford said.
Futures Week shines a light on the area of personal development and career transition among PCA members. The two-day Futures Conference forms the centrepiece of the initiative and both are part of the PCA’s Personal Development and Welfare Programme (PDWP). Click here to find out more.
Name of Author: Professional Cricketers Association
The Professional Cricketers’ Association (PCA), founded in 1967 by former England fast bowler Fred Rumsey as the Cricketers’ Association, represents past and present first-class cricketers in England and Wales. In the 1970s, the PCA established a standard employment contract and minimum wage for professional cricketers. It also helped create a pension scheme in 1995 and launched the magazine All Out Cricket and the ACE UK Educational Programme in 2002.
