{"id":30804,"date":"2026-05-04T06:59:05","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T06:59:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/30804\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T06:59:05","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T06:59:05","slug":"surrey-cricket-club-invites-remote-work-at-its-historic-oval-ground","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/30804\/","title":{"rendered":"Surrey cricket club invites remote work at its historic Oval ground"},"content":{"rendered":"

LONDON (AP) \u2014 Working from home is the new normal for millions of people in the U.K., and Surrey County Cricket Club has spotted an opportunity to galvanize attendance at its south London<\/a> ground.<\/p>\n

Surrey, one of the most successful teams in England, is encouraging hybrid workers to come and do their jobs at The Kia Oval, the 180-year-old ground just south of the River Thames. <\/p>\n

Over the winter, it upgraded the Wi-Fi and set aside work areas with desks, access to power and clear views of the game. \u201cWork From Oval,\u201d it\u2019s been dubbed.<\/p>\n

It pondered whether it is the \u201cbest home office in the country\u201d and crucially assured would-be-workers that \u201cwe won\u2019t tell your boss.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the three home four-day County Championship matches it has hosted this season, hundreds have taken up the chance to work at the Oval. <\/p>\n

England\u2019s premier competition has been mocked for decades for its relatively low attendances \u2014 one man and his dog is a regularly voiced description, however unfair.<\/p>\n

That certainly wasn\u2019t the case at The Kia Oval on Friday when Surrey hosted Sussex on the first day of their match. Over 6,000 attended, the crowd swelled by the glorious weather and the prospect of a full-day \u2014 more than seven hours \u2014 of cricket ahead. <\/p>\n

Though the ground has a capacity of around 27,500, that\u2019s really not a bad crowd during a work day. The Oval does sell out for England test matches against other nations and for Surrey\u2019s short-format games. <\/p>\n

Harry Ashton, director of Elite Finance Solutions, usually works from a coworking space in nearby Wimbledon. He jumped at the chance of working at the Oval for just 15 pounds ($20). <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not quite as good as Lytham Cricket Club,\u201d he quipped, referencing his local club in the northwest of England.<\/p>\n

Ashton was joined later by some friends, and after a few hours of work, they enjoyed a beer or two. It was Friday, after all, and the start of a three-day weekend as Monday is a public holiday in the U.K. <\/p>\n

In recent years, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic<\/a>, it\u2019s been evident that many people at the Oval have their laptops to hand. Arguably, the shift toward hybrid work has become the main legacy of the pandemic. <\/p>\n

Though more and more firms are forcing their staff to come into the office, more than a quarter of working adults in the U.K. work remotely part of the time, according to the Office for National Statistics. Critics argue that hybrid working is negatively impacting productivity, an individual\u2019s work ethic and the wider economy as a whole.<\/p>\n

All the evidence on this particular Friday was that the dozens or so working at the ground were doing just that. Numbers were crunched and Zoom calls were held. <\/p>\n

\u201cI have great belief in life generally, if you treat someone like an adult, they will behave like an adult,\u201d said Neil Munro, owner of Munron Consulting Ltd. \u201cI don\u2019t see any downside provided everyone treats it with respect.\u201d <\/p>\n

Matthew Balch, a keen club cricketer himself, agrees. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think all of the counties should lean into the remote worker-freelancer market to grow attendances,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Some workers were a bit more coy. <\/p>\n

One 46-year-old woman working for a global company insisted on maintaining her anonymity, voicing concerns about how she would be perceived. <\/p>\n

There\u2019s still a stigma.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON (AP) \u2014 Working from home is the new normal for millions of people in the U.K., and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30805,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[525,4071,592,14142,14144,4014,14143,14145,49,97,14141,403,14146,13168,2748,218],"class_list":{"0":"post-30804","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-surrey","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-cricket","10":"tag-general-news","11":"tag-harry-ashton","12":"tag-internet-access","13":"tag-jobs-and-careers","14":"tag-matthew-balch","15":"tag-neil-munro","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-surrey","18":"tag-telecommuting","19":"tag-united-kingdom","20":"tag-wireless-technology","21":"tag-work-life-balance","22":"tag-workplace-culture","23":"tag-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30804\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}