Colin Graves is on the verge of a controversial return as Yorkshire chairman after nine turbulent, dramatic years, but in many ways he never really left. Having kept the club afloat with a succession of cash injections Graves stepped down in March 2015 with a promise that “the bank of Colin Graves has gone”; in reality it did nothing of the sort.
Graves started his career as a teenager on the shop floor at Spar and made his millions after founding Costcutter in 1986. He first joined Yorkshire in 2002 as one of the so-called “Gang of Four” – along with the future chairman Robin Smith, the former spinner Geoff Cope, who played 246 first-class games for Yorkshire and three Tests for England, and Brian Boutell, a former partner in accountancy firm KPMG – who rescued the club from imminent bankruptcy.
