Darren “Butch” Burchall has fulfilled a childhood dream to become president of Southampton Rangers Sports Club.

A “son of the soil”, Burchall was elected to the post at the club’s recent annual meeting and is delighted to be following in some illustrious footsteps.

“I’ve always wanted to be the president of Rangers ever since I was young and watching people like Burt Wright, Stanley Lowe and Reginald Burrows, who have all passed,” Burchall told The Royal Gazette.

“I liked the way they managed the club and I liked to think that one day it might be me. When Reginald Burrows stepped down after a couple of decades in charge, I ran for president and lost by one vote to the late Aldwyn Savery.

“I led Boulevard Community Club as president but this is the icing on the cake. This is the crème de la crème for me to be able to lead not just my club but my community.

“It’s nice to have a son of the soil and somebody from right on the doorstep of the club that’s going to come in with a vision and try to move the club forward and move the community.”

The community features prominently in Burchall’s ideas and he hopes to get as many local people as possible actively involved in the club.

“That’s my thing; it’s about the community and I want to get the community involved in the club,” the 59-year-old said.

“We want to be the service and action hub for the whole community, whether it be the churches, whether it be promoters or people with good ideas and initiatives.

“We’re going to do whatever it takes to bring our community together and give our community an opportunity to interact and erase the sour flavour that is in the mouths of some because of past antisocial behaviour at Rangers.

“A lot of the young men involved in that have grown up, have families of their own and are now either taking leadership roles or coming forward with initiatives to help move things forward.”

Burchall’s broad and ambitious vision also includes establishing a centre for sports excellence and pickleball courts on the club’s south shore premises.

“That’s down the road a little further but you have to dream to make it a reality,” he said.

“I dreamt this dream of being president 40 to 50 years ago and it has now come to fruition. But it’s not going to happen right away and our first six months are just going to lay the groundwork.

“People are not going to see stuff moving and then all of a sudden we’ll explode. I am a strategic planner and I believe it takes teams of teams to make teams and organisation better.”

The former Rangers footballer and cricketer also plans to have the club more involved in women’s sport and to implement programmes with the aim of grooming youngsters into future leaders.

“I want to have a whole slate of women’s sport at Southampton Rangers,” Burchall said. “I want to bring that in and develop our youngsters not just in football and cricket but for leadership,” he said.

“We’ll have a youth club and several things that will help everybody in the community to be able to play a role somewhere, somehow.”

Burchall’s successful run for the presidency has not come without sacrifice as he has stepped away from coaching Rangers’ cricket team, handing the reins to former national coach Herbie Bascome.

“We haven’t made a public statement but it’s common knowledge now that I was always going to step aside if I was successful in becoming president and Herbie Bascome has come in and taken over the cricket,” he said.

“We’ve started the season really well. We’ve played three games, won three games and the youngsters are buying into what Herbie is doing. Herbie is a wizard, has been there and done it.

“He’s not just the coach as his official position is the high-performance instructor and technical director of cricket at Southampton Rangers. He’s going to come in for a year, maybe two, and help Ryan Belboda with the youth programme, revamp it and get everything on the same page.

“It would be nice to still have Janeiro Tucker [former Rangers player-coach and now Somerset coach] but his time is coming. He’ll be back home eventually, but right now Herbie is the guy.”

It’s not all about cricket at Rangers with Burchall also optimistic about the future of the club’s football programme under the stewardship of player-coach Keith Jennings.

“We haven’t been promoted the last couple of years, but I watch Keith’s sessions and they’re well organised,” he said.

“You can see what he is doing in training being demonstrated on the football field.”