New racecourse boss has a lot on his Plate

Aug 18 2008 by Graeme King, The Journal

The new director of Newcastle Racecourse has a demanding job, an even more demanding football team to support, and a young family to run around after, yet he faces the challenge of building up one of the region’s biggest leisure businesses with relish. Graeme King met the tireless Mark Spincer.

IT IS perhaps not the best time to meet Mark Spincer. Right at the peak of the busy summer period of high profile race meetings at Gosforth Park, he has a lot on his Northumberland Plate, having only recently been installed as the racecourse’s new boss.

He exhibits a focused energy which suggests he quite capable of thinking about the next dozen jobs on his daily diary, as well as dealing with a newspaper interview.

Apart from his family, a love of running and a passion for Sheffield United, it seems his working life is what really gets Spincer going.

The 38-year-old says his hard working approach was instilled in him at a fairly early age since his family bought a milk round, and he was drafted in to deliver milk door-to-door.

That demanding early morning schedule seems to have got into his system pretty thoroughly, and he admits to having a fiercely motivated attitude to his working life.

Spincer started out in life in Horsforth, on the north west edge of Leeds, but his family moved around quite a lot when he was a child.

His father studied biochemistry and was then sponsored by the Army to qualify in medicine and spent many years in the medical corps.

His parents split up when he was five, and he lived in Leeds, Croydon, and Lancashire, before eventually ending up in Retford in Nottinghamshire.

“My family bought a milk round. So from 11, my career started as I delivered milk before school. After I left school, I went to catering college. I worked for Whitbread for 15 years as a chef, then assistant manager, then eventually became brand standards manager.

“From there I joined Center Parcs, and stayed for five and a half years as food and beverage concept manager.”

Spincer says he has never done one job for more than five years, so he knew it was time to move on from Center Parcs and find a new challenge.

He had no idea when he started looking that he would end up in the North East, but a man who says he has driven 50,000 miles in each of the last 12 years is clearly not scared of a bit of commuting. He plans to travel between the family home in Staffordshire and Newcastle on a regular basis. He does not fancy moving away completely as he and wife Sarah have recently had a home built to order. The couple have a three-year-old daughter called Charlotte.

Says Mark: “We built a new house. We bought the land, designed it, and had it built. It’s constructed in an aged brick to give a cottage effect. One thing we wanted was to have an open gallery landing with glass down the front of the house.

“I am in the process of moving up here to the North East. We will probably spend two weekends here, then one in Burton on Trent. My wife works four days per week.

“Center Parcs was in Nottingham, so I had a 120 mile round trip every day. I made my decision to leave Center Parcs. I told them I was leaving as I was looking for the next stage in my career.

“I was offered work in Dubai amongst other places, but I chose Newcastle over several other jobs. The size of the job here, the opportunities, the way in which the racecourse had been so well managed previously, were all attractive.

“David (Williamson, the previous incumbent) has done a very good job here. It was a case of tweaking and looking at what was successful.

“I can phone him up for advice, and to check things. He’s a big racing man, and he’s always welcome here. The fortunate thing for me is he’s gone on to bigger and better things at Newcastle United where he is now operations director.”

Spincer has taken on what must be a great job for anybody in the hospitality field. For Newcastle Racecourse is much more than just a venue for racing. It has evolved to offer several sports, as well as conference and banqueting facilities, and Spincer has ambitions to add much more – following in the footsteps of Williamson’s diversification programme.

He says: “We have the same personnel, from before and after my arrival, but a different captain – or conductor of the orchestra.

“The diversity of the role really interested me. It’s Newcastle Racecourse, but a lot more too. Conferencing, banqueting and events. It’s a fantastic opportunity to grow and do different things.

“I look after the golf club as well. We have 800 acres of land, so I can look at what else I can do in the next two or three years.

“I would like to make this a leisure complex, to have five-a-side football, golf, racing. But then what other opportunities are there? What’s missing in the local area that we can introduce?

“It could be high rope challenges, clay pigeon shooting – there’s a fantastic opportunity to really explore things. We also have outline planning permission to put a number of bedrooms on to the site.”

However, racing remains at the core of what Spincer was hired to do. He is clearly ascending quite a steep learning curve on all the aspects which make up a successful race meeting, but is already looking ahead to next year.

He says: “I’m thinking with my team about the Plate next year. It’s renowned as the pitmen’s derby, so I want colliery bands for the Saturday of the plate. If there is anybody out there who can help with that, I would like to talk to them this year in anticipation.

“But I also want the meeting to be properly the Ascot of the North. I would like bands to march up the road here and play on the racecourse.

“The event is owned and loved and treasured by people from Newcastle, and surrounding areas and always will be, but we do have quite a lot of visitors from Scotland and Ireland. We are attracting more and more people from outside the area.”

Beyond the showpiece occasions, does Spincer anticipate having more racing at Newcastle, to capitalise on his key asset?

“The track will be the determining factor in whether we race more. We already have next year’s calendar 29 days racing in 2009. We had the option to take three more race meetings, but we need to give the ground time to recover.

“There are certainly times in the year where it has to be 100% right, and you have to have the best conditions for the horses. Over racing the ground would make it difficult to keep the track in perfect condition.”

So what can the new executive director do to boost the success of the meeting further? He appears open to ideas.

“The Plate holds its own against the bigger meetings. What we need to do as an area is decide how we can support some of the meetings at Newcastle that are not the Plate. How do we get the audience to support us?

“It’s easy marketing this as a great place to come. The people in Newcastle are special. In just three weeks, I picked up how welcoming it is, how friendly, how people know how to have a good time.

“We need to look at how do we get to a market and attract the people who come for a couple of meetings. How do we get them back for other meetings?

“For the Plate this year we had the best field we’ve ever had. We had horses from Norway, France, Scotland, and the meeting had £430,000 in prize money over three days.

“You could not get a hotel room, could not get a taxi in Newcastle. There were more than 40 coaches, hoppers from the city centre. It’s a very, very big event.

“The team did a fantastic job. We had a record year for any Northern Racing site on the Saturday, financially. Attendance was on a par with last year.”

So what lies ahead in the coming years, now Spincer is getting bedded into the day to day running of the racecourse?

“Northern Racing has a very clear plan of where they think Newcastle should go in the next two to three years. Investment will go into the site to give the opportunity to do that.

“But we have to get the masterplan right before we embark on that. As much as we want leisure facilities, do you build the hotel first perhaps?

“I do think that we are quite a key player in the hospitality arena to support other areas around the racecourse.

“I’m from a hospitality and event background. I bring a new set of eyes, It’s about getting those opportunities and working hard on them.

“Me and my team will be delivering over time, people will see subtle changes and an overall better experience.”