No athlete wants to retire due to injury,” says Matt Prior, England’s Ashes-winning wicketkeeper who was forced to do just that in June 2015. “But the decision was taken out of my hands. My body simply could no longer deal with the strain of playing international cricket.”

Prior’s early retirement was brought on by a persistent achilles injury when he was still at the top of his game. A vital cog in a machine described as one of the greatest ever England cricket teams, the three-time Ashes winner packed his gloves away for the last time after playing 79 Tests and scoring more than 4,000 runs at an average of 40.19.

“I can look back at my career with a huge amount of pride. I played for my country and did so in an era in which English cricket was very successful. I gave my everything for England and, ultimately, that’s why I got injured.”

OUT OF THE PAN AND…
Aged just 33, Prior decided that he wasn’t, however, done with elite sport. Rather than follow former colleagues Michael Vaughan, Andrew Strauss and Graeme Swann into the relative safety of cricket punditry, he committed his future to professional cycling. This time, though, he won’t be performing heroics ‘on the pitch’.

Prior is the co?founder and chief executive of ONE Pro Cycling, a professional team with the bold aim of reaching the World Tour, cycling’s highest level. This will mean taking on the likes of Team Sky, Astana and Movistar at Tour de France, La Vuelta and Giro d’Italia.

But how does one go from being an England wicketkeeper to a cycling team owner? Ironically, it might have never happened if it wasn’t for the niggling injury which eventually ended his career.

“I got into cycling purely because of the injury to my achilles,” Prior says. “Cycling was very helpful for my rehab and it quickly became a passion. So much so that I began to follow cycling and took an interest in it as a sport – rather than just a form of exercise – and eventually got interested in the business side of it too.

“It’s funny how, if you play one sport professionally and show interest in another, the word gets round and people start inviting you to events. In my case, it meant I became involved in the cycling world and made some contacts within it.”

It was one of those contacts, made while recovering from injury, that would result in setting up ONE Pro.

“When I was forced to pull out of cricket and found some time on my hands, Becky Frewing, who’d previously been involved with British cycling teams, mentioned starting up a new team. At first I didn’t take it seriously but after looking into it in detail I could see an enormous opportunity not just to create a UK cycling team, but to create a brand and a company. Following the initial chats with Becky, I then met up with entrepreneur Simon Chappell and he too could see the opportunity. We put our heads together and ONE Pro Cycling was born.”

ESTEEMED MEMBERSHIPS
Prior says Chappell, the founder of Leeds-based Backup Technology, has been instrumental in the setting up of ONE Pro. A self-made millionaire, Chappell is now chair of the team and – alongside Prior, Frewing (general manager) and Rob Over (commercial operations manager) – plays a major role in running the team’s day-to-day operations. Led by Prior, the quartet has come up with an innovative concept to ensure the economic sustainability of ONE Pro. While most professional cycling teams rely on high-profile, high value sponsorship and naming deals, ONE Pro is looking to create a stable brand – meaning that the team name isn’t for sale.

“We’ve gone about things slightly differently when it comes to our funding model,” Prior says. “It started off with an initial fee investment, which we’ve used to create the brand and hire the team.

“We’ve been able to get partners and sponsors involved, but we don’t want or plan to sell title sponsorship – we want to be called ONE Pro Cycling just like a sports team. We want the name to keep the same and for people to build up allegiance and loyalty to the “club” – just like football or cricket fans would. Hopefully in years to come, a little 10-year-old will follow ONE Pro Cycling because his dad follows us too.”

To promote the sense of ONE Pro being a club, it will offer a wide range of membership packages – so fans will literally be part of it. Benefits depend on the level of membership and include everything from branded merchandise to organised cycling sessions with ONE Pro’s professional riders and coaches.

“Another thing we’re creating is ONE Pro Cycling House. We already tried out the concept during the final stage of this year’s Tour of Britain. We set it up in Piccadilly, London, as a space where all cycling fans could come and have a drink and some food and mix together, while they watched the riders go past.”

GOING THE DISTANCE
Listening to Prior describe the new venture in such passionate and detailed terms makes it clear that he is no “ambassador” – merely a famous face recruited to add visibility and credibility to a vanity project. Prior is fully committed to the success of ONE Pro and says reaching the goals set for ONE Pro – to challenge at a Tour de France one day – would rate up there with any of his cricketing achievements. This he puts down to his personality.

“I’m hugely competitive, anything I put my name to I want to do properly,” he says. “You can’t turn that off. I guess it’s a bit of an “all-or-nothing” approach: whatever I end up doing will always be 100 per cent.”

Details: www.oneprocycling.com