Enjoyed this
Yes, that’s a fine piece of writing.
I wish someone would feel the same whenever we win the title. By all accounts, we only won the 1994 title because of Lara (Don't bowlers have to bowl side out to win CC games) according to most journo's. we only won the 1995 title because our pitches were 'green' according to Mike Breareley (strange if you consider that most of our best performances were often away from home and we played 2 spinners, Smith/Davis or Smith/Giles combinations every game), in 2004, we played for draws and even Kent captain Steve Marsh complained that we only won 5 games (we didn't ever look like losing, Kent lost 3 times) and in 2021, everyone said we were lucky because of the way the whole CC was structured, well, we didn't implement it and despite Notts fans being pissed off because they won more games than anyone, we beat them twice in the 6-team qualifying group and the rules were quite clear from the start. Maybe when we next win it, a new excuse from 'The Experts' will have been thought up. Notts deserved it and their rotating of their fast bowlers was really well structured but whether of not, Josh Tongue will be given a central contract, might scupper that next season.
In 1972 (won on the day I was born) we were called the United Nations because we had so many overseas players and were considered to have bought the County Championship.
1911 and 1951 seem to have been genuine case of joy unconfined and appreciation!
Back in 1911, there was a lot of criticism of Warwickshire's win. Supporters of Kent (who came second and did not have a fixture against Warwickshire that year) were adamant that, had the teams met, Kent would have won. This ignored the fact that Kent didn't play Warwickshire because they thought that Warwickshire were an inferior, provincial county.
There is a famous Punch cartoon that shows Shakespeare shaking the hand of Warwickshire captain Frank Foster who says (with a quote from Henry VI) "Tell Kent from me she hath lost," to which the bard replies with another quote: "Warwick, thou art worthy."
The editor of Wisden was keen to point out that under previous methods of scoring, Kent would have been top; and he said that "probably few cricketers would contend that Warwickshire had the best eleven of the year"; and "under all conditions Kent, no doubt, had the strongest side." He did acknowledge, rather condescendingly, that "it was a good thing that the Championship should have gone to one of the outside counties."
I delved into the book on Frank Foster by Robert Brooke, where he made a similar point, that we were not good enough to play Kent who then complained about us winning the title. Also I also saw on Wikipedia that a particular dry Summer in 1911 left the pitches very hard which helped our fast bowling attack, so something that we or no other human has any control over, was responsible for our 1911 CC title. The whole structure of allowing a side to play as many times as they liked as long as they played a certain minimum amount of games, was brainless anyway so should have been blamed as well as Kent's snobbishness, which backfired. It is now quite funny that we have won the CC more times than them and the same amount of one-day titles though most of theirs were in the 1970's. So go and ++++ off Kent.
So a team that plays in the second city is classed a provincial. This by a county famous for a cathedral and having a tree within the boundary!
Yes, that sodding tree. Maybe that is why Kent, supposedly one of the original 'Big 6', never had a Test ground because who wants to see a Test where a scorching shot doesn't get to the boundary because of some huge lump of wood on the actual playing area.
paulbear wrote:
Yes, that sodding tree. Maybe that is why Kent, supposedly one of the original 'Big 6', never had a Test ground because who wants to see a Test where a scorching shot doesn't get to the boundary because of some huge lump of wood on the actual playing area.
An unkind description of Rob Key in his Kent playing days.
GerryShedd wrote:
paulbear wrote:
Yes, that sodding tree. Maybe that is why Kent, supposedly one of the original 'Big 6', never had a Test ground because who wants to see a Test where a scorching shot doesn't get to the boundary because of some huge lump of wood on the actual playing area.
An unkind description of Rob Key in his Kent playing days.
Stop it! I can't stop laughing