David Warner on Yorkshire

Yorkshire will be re-born in orange as Yorkshire Phoenix in Division One of the new National Cricket League which starts up this season, the club announced today.

Details were released at a media conference at Leeds-Bradford airport attended by Yorkshire and England star bowler Darren Gough who officially opened the Headingley Snug, a section of The Yorkshire Hero pub which will have a permanent Yorkshire cricket theme.

Yorkshire showed off their new range of orange coloured clothing. Director of marketing, Mark Newton, commented: "Our new name is intended to signal the re-birth of Yorkshire cricket in one-day matches and we want Yorkshire to be seen as leaders in this area rather than followers.

"The brightly coloured clothing completes the team's new image which is aimed at attracting younger people to come along and enjoy the excitement of one-day cricket."

Meanwhile, Leeds City Council have confirmed their support for proposed measures by Yorkshire to keep Headingley as a Test match venue and they have described last week's talks with the county club over possible assistance with the funding as "positive and constructive".

A council spokesman added that in relation to the proposed community facilities at Headingley the council had agreed to consider how these linked in with their own objectives and might, therefore, merit support in their own right. "We will contact Yorkshire again after these matters have been fully appraised," he said.

Yorkshire need to know how much cash the council are prepared to stump up before they submit an application to the Sports Council for national lottery funding for the first phase of the re-development plan which will cost just over £11m if it can be implemented.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.