Lives in Cricket No 19 - Frank Sugg

Sugg Ltd was transferred from Liverpool to the Philip Mead Bat Company’s head office at 54 Great Eastern Street, Shoreditch, on the edge of the City of London. Walter Sugg was replaced as managing director by Edgar Jay, who sought to exercise detailed control from the centre. This caused much unrest in Sugg branches around the country. Relations between the Sugg brothers, who continued as directors, and Edgar Jay and other Philip Mead Bat Company top managers were strained from the outset and were compounded as it became clear that the financial difficulties of the Philip Mead Bat Company meant that it was unable to provide all the additional finance it had promised. For Frank Sugg Ltd matters went from bad to worse. In the year to 31 January 1922, a net loss of £29,170 12s 11d was recorded. With continuing and mounting losses came further changes in the directors and increased borrowing, including from the Philip Mead Bat Company. There were serious problems in maintaining adequate supplies of the wide range of products to the branches and quality standards slipped. Customer complaints increased. Through 1923 the company struggled to keep afloat. Bills went unpaid and cheques bounced. Internal documents show how seriously relations between Frank Sugg and his co-directors deteriorated as the company slid towards the abyss. Frank made little effort to hide his disagreement with the way the business was being run or his hostility towards Edgar Jay. 106 He may have been a good team-player on the cricket field but that could not be said of his later years in the world of business. A major slimming-down of the Frank Sugg business might have saved it, but backbiting within the top management undermined all attempts to work towards a solution. 107 The financial difficulties proved too serious to staunch and on 18 December 1923 a winding-up order was made by the High Court upon petitions presented by the company’s creditors on 3 and 4 December 1923. A Receiver was appointed to carry out the winding-up. During 1924 the process of selling branches, stock and other company assets got underway. The Frank Sugg business was effectively dead, even though it continued to trade in a minor way through the mail until the Receiver had completed his work. Frank’s Business Career 111 106 In September 1923 Frank Sugg sued the company he had founded for monies he claimed were due to him and was then banned from entering any premises of Frank Sugg Ltd until a settlement was reached. Countering, the company chairman accused Frank of giving inadequate attention to the affairs of the business and wasting his colleagues’ time ‘by telling filthy yarns’. 107 In a note he scribbled on one letter, Frank Sugg referred to how ‘they smoothed us over with lying promises.’ He also claimed minutes of meetings had been altered after the event.