AS Durham await Ian Botham's New Year installation as chairman, Tim Wellock assesses the legacy of his predecessor, Clive Leach.

IT was in the middle of the 2004 season that Clive Leach took over as Durham chairman, a role in which he survived for 12 years.

He had played for Warwickshire in the 1950s prior to turning out for Durham during a stint as Bishop Auckland's professional on his way to becoming head of Yorkshire and Tyne Tees Television.

For someone who worked in the media, he kept a remarkably low profile during his time as chairman, culminating in a reluctance to talk about the circumstances of his departure.

Just short of his 82nd birthday, he had decided to step down at the end of the season irrespective of the outcome of Durham's request for an ECB bail-out.

His departure unfortunately coincided with the punishment which sent shockwaves through the shires, casting a very dark shadow over a decade of remarkable achievement.

From the depths of division two when Leach arrived, Durham achieved promotion in 2005 and enjoyed a record 11-year run in the top flight until it was cruelly ended.

Starting with the Friends Provident Trophy in 2007, they won five trophies in eight seasons, including three county titles.

Their stature as the best team during that period was complemented by the regular production of England players. Paul Collingwood, Steve Harmison and Liam Plunkett appeared in the same England line-up and were followed by Graham Onions, Mark Wood, Ben Stokes and Scott Borthwick.

Phil Mustard made England one-day appearances and Keaton Jennings has made his Test debut this winter. Only Yorkshire have brought more England players through their ranks in recent years.

The hugely successful staging of an Ashes Test in the unlikely setting of Chester-le-Street in 2014 seemed like the ultimate justification of the heavy expenditure incurred in creating the stadium.

The warning signs were already there, however. There was no escaping the fact that it was an unlikely setting. For all the beauty of the backdrop and the proximity to the A1, it was never likely to attract the crowds enjoyed in big city venues.

Nor could it attract a hotel company to take advantage of the earmarked site alongside the River Wear, putting Durham at a big disadvantage with rival grounds.

In all their financial projections in recent years, Leach and his fellow board members seemed to be banking on a hotel bringing in conference and banqueting revenue.

They were convinced it would happen, but after several false starts the project refused to got off the ground.

While the repayments on loans taken out to complete the stadium finally crippled Durham, with the benefit of hindsight it can be seen that the loosening of the purse strings involved in building a successful side precipitated the slide into financial insecurity.

Leach insisted from the outset there was no point in having an impressive ground without a team to grace it. Mike Hussey and Dale Benkenstein arrived in 2005, followed in subsequent seasons by Michael Di Venuto and Ottis Gibson.

Their various qualifications meant Durham still had a vacancy for an official overseas player, allowing Shivnarine Chanderpaul to play a part in the capture of the first two trophies.

The nurturing of local talent continued through the academy, however, so that when the cost of imports began to bite Durham maintained their standards so successfully that they won their third title against the odds in 2013.

In many respects they had become the model county club and, despite further cost-cutting, they finished a respectable fourth last season and reached the NatWest T20 Blast final.

Such success makes it all the harder for blameless players to accept their starting position behind the pack in all competitions next season.

Is Leach to blame? Doubtless he enjoyed his years of glory, but he could hardly be accused of basking in them to the extent of taking his eye off the ball.

Perhaps he should have quit after ten years, when he was 80, but insisted he was fit and healthy and there was still work to be done in ensuring a sustainable future.

Asked at the time why Durham couldn't afford an overseas man while Yorkshire, with four times as much debt, continued to splash out, he replied: “We don't like a lot of debt.”

The debt was, in fact, about to start spiralling. He and some of his fellow directors put money in, hoping to stem the tide. But ultimately Durham have been punished for not having the multi-millionaire benefactor enjoyed by some other counties with much greater debts.

Among them is ECB chairman Colin Graves. It is difficult to imagine that he would have been on Clive Leach's Christmas card list.