Howard was born in 1949 and grew up in the Bournville area of Birmingham. He attended Bourneville Junior School where he captained both the football and cricket teams. He then went onto Bromsgrove High School, a typical grammar school that at the time had an excellent reputation for sports. He regularly represented the school in a variety of sports, captaining the School and District athletics and swimming teams. He also played representative cricket and football for Worcester Grammar schools. On the football field for he played up front and scored his fair share of goals in each age group. On the cricket side he was encouraged and coached to be an opening bowler who bowled quickly and accurately. He took many wickets in both house matches and school teams with 7-17 his best bowling figures for the school.

On leaving school in 1965, he started to train as a Surveyor. Playing football was his main sport and he initially joined Moor Green FC. He didn't play cricket too seriously at this stage and for convenience, chose to join Weoley Hill CC as they had a club equipment bag so he didn't need to have his own equipment. Because he was able to bowl quite quickly on pitches that weren't always batsmen friendly, he started to build a reputation as a good opening bowler. A fast arm, accuracy and good stamina, were his main attributes as well as maintaining a miserly run rate off his bowling One of his other strengths was fielding in the slips or close to the bat where he has 'pouched' many catches over the years.

He has been a consistent wicket taker during 45 years of playing at this level and has become Weoley Hill's all time record holder of at least 1900 victims to date including over 60 5fers, a best 9-13 and 3 hat tricks. The only downside on his playing career is that he never scored a century. Regularly opening the bowling for his entire career for whatever team he has played for and being captain for quite a number of years, has meant batting in the lower part of the order. Inevitably there have been quite a few brisk scoring cameos as well as a fair share of low scores. Indeed the only year that he regularly batted up the order, he won the League batting prize, scoring several 50's on the way but 88 still remains his best score. As well as playing for Weoley Hill he has played for a number of other teams notably MCC, Forty Club, Chaddesley Corbett CC, Warwickshire Over 50's, MCCC. Wickets taken for these and other teams takes his career total to over 2200.

After a disagreement over a point of cricket law, Howard decided to get trained as an umpire and quickly passed all the necessary exams to get to the fully qualified status. He was encouraged to stand in the Birmingham & District Premier League and was on the list for 11 years, finishing on the elite panel. He was pleased to have had the opportunity to officiate in several County 2XI and other representative matches, and had the distinction of standing in matches at Lord's and Edgbaston. He has also stood in a variety of matches overseas.

To complete his set of cricket disciplines, he has undertaken coaching courses and been part of Weoley Hill's coaching development scheme. He is very proud of the way that this initiative has grown over the years. When the club had sufficient young players competent enough to play senior cricket, it joined the Warwickshire Cricket League and Howard stopped umpiring on Saturdays and took over the captaincy of the newly formed 2nd XI to help with general development. This strategy was successful and the club has subsequently risen up through the league structure.

Howard is a professionally qualified manager and surveyor with a wide range of experience picked up in both the private and public sectors. Along with a small group of pro-active senior club members he has used his experience to ensure that Weoley Hill CC has progressed over the years to now offer excellent facilities and a much improved playing surface. His attitude is don't talk about it, do it, so he undertook courses in groundsmanship and equipment maintenance and got advice from number of sources that over the years have proved invaluable.

He can lay claim to obtaining about £100K for the club over the last 25 years. Securing grants has allowed equipment, and facilities to be brought or upgraded. A good proportion of this funding was obtained in 2004 for a project to celebrate the club's 75th anniversary. Club members embarked on a major self -rebuild of the premises. This involved demolishing the existing buildings and rebuilding with a more up to date facility. Howard classed this project as one of the most satisfying he has worked on because of the level of voluntary commitment given by club members.

His administrative experience started at Weoley Hill where he undertook most of the posts over 25 years, finishing up as Chairman. He was then invited to join MCCC and he has been a committee member for 15 years finishing as Vice-Chairman. He has been very keen to promote the Conference. His selection policy of playing players in representative matches, who work hard on behalf of their clubs, has ensured that several dozen players have been given the opportunity to play for the Conference. He is also the current Chairman of the South Birmingham Cricket Board. He was also involved as an advisor for the Charity who donated a substantial amount of funding towards the ECB Centre of Excellence at Loughborough University, and was presented to the Queen on the official opening.

One of his early ambitions was to play cricket abroad and this has been amply achieved as he has regularly toured over the past few years and undertaken cricket activities in 17 countries. For example he has played in China and Italy, coached in Malawi, Ghana and Pakistan, umpired in India and Honk Kong as well as playing in the more traditional cricket playing countries eg South Africa, and the West Indies. Great experiences which he is very pleased to have been able to undertake. He says that everyone who plays cricket should at least sample one overseas tour before they stop playing the game.

Howard is very fortunate and very grateful that his wife Margaret and his children have supported him throughout his cricket career. He wouldn't have been able to achieve all that he has without their backing.

He is looking forward to his year of Presidency and will ensure that MCCC maintains the prestigious standing that it has within the cricket world.