ormed more than 30 years ago while watching another English cricket defeat on Australian soil, The Barmy Army has grown from a group of mates singing songs on a hill to a supporters group with 23 full-time employees, 55,000 registered members, and over 2.5m social media followers. Managing Director Chris Millard has been with the organisation for over a decade and offers these lessons from the Barmy Army…
The most important thing we ever did was go people-first, not product-first. The Barmy Army wouldn’t have worked if it had gone commercial first. It had to be about the movement, the people. Then, over the last fifteen years, we’ve been able to commercialise it. I went to a marketing conference once where the speaker said: if someone has your brand tattooed on them, you’ve made it. I can think of ten people right now with Barmy Army tattoos. That just comes back to how unique and special this really is.
Covid tested that. Suddenly you couldn’t play sport, couldn’t watch it, couldn’t travel. We thought the first thing people would drop was a cricket membership they no longer needed. But membership grew. That’s when we thought: we’re on to something really special here, because it’s not a monetary item. It’s something people feel they belong to.
There will always be critics. I wrongly spent the first years in my role focusing on the 1% who didn’t like the decisions we were making, trying to bring them on side. Actually, the silent majority – the 95% who think you’re doing something amazing – are the people to keep driving forward for. It’s very easy to be paralysed trying to bring everyone with you.
Protecting your identity matters as much as building it. We’ve turned down sponsorship deals for things like washing machines because it doesn’t represent anything our members stand for. Every event, every marketing campaign with a partner always has the member first.
And never stop listening. We’re aware we have business-tinted glasses on sometimes, so seeking insight from the people paying for the experience is the most important part. For everyone who travels with us, we send out a detailed survey at the end of a tour. Anything that warrants a conversation, we pick up the phone.
The vision in my head is 16-year-old Tommy who finds us on TikTok, becomes a member, comes to cricket in the UK, and eventually goes on an Ashes tour later in life. That pipeline – that sense of belonging across generations – is what we’re building.
Chris Millard
Appointed The Barmy Army managing director in 2018, Chris led the group’s digital-era rebrand and remains a Non-Executive Director, having been appointed Global CEO of Century Cricket in August 2026.
