NEW Lancashire chairman Jack Simmons today vowed to unify the troubled county Cricket club.

The 56-year-old was today announced as successor to Bob Bennett, chairman since 1986, after a secret ballot of the committee

Simmons had been opposed by John Brewer, a Fleetwood solicitor, who has been on the committee since 1978 and is also head of the Lancashire Cricket Board.

But Simmons was seen as the sort of person needed to take over from Bennett. He said: "I hope that now we can all communicate together, whether it be players, administrators, caterers or groundstaff to achieve our ultimate goal of making Lancashire the envy of county cricket clubs.

"I'm absolutely delighted - it's a great honour."

Immensely popular as a player between 1968 and 1989, as he showed with a then record benefit of £128,000 in 1980, he has become an influential member of the cricket committee over the last four seasons.

Simmons played a total of 429 first class matches for Lancashire, being capped in 1971, and also earned huge popularity in a number of seasons with Tasmania in Australia.

He will chair his first committee meeting at Old Trafford next week.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.