By way of kicking this blog off, and if anyone stumbles on this without coming through the seven and seven eighths experience it is for their benefit as well, I must put my cards on the table. Dmitri Old is a Surrey member.
The key, and last season one could say the only, benefit of this membership is that I get priority booking for test match tickets. The value of this diminishes over time. Where once you could secure 10 tickets per day, at the time of the last Ashes we were reduced to just six, and now for the upcoming series, we are reduced to four. The Oval Test is as much a social occasion to be enjoyed with the OJCC alumni as it is a cricket match, and the opportunities to have this social function are being reduced over time. I await ticket sales for West Indies 2010 to see how the populace responds to this restriction (actually, given The Oval regularly sells out, Surrey knew they could implement this and still be fine).
On the cricket side, 2008 was a total disaster. Relegation without winning a game; a dreadful 20/20 campaign; and the two other limited overs competitions passing us by with our name never mentioned as a potential winner. The team had no cohesion; the skipper was injured, the bowling was toothless; the batting too reliant on Ramprakash; and a mystifying overseas player policy, culminating in the Shoaib Akhtar debacle.
Due to US commitments on my leave, I was thankful that the opportunities to see county cricket were so scarce. I think I saw Surrey lose three times to Kent at The Oval and have trouble remembering anything else. Each defeat was abject; awful; demoralising. Geraint Jones, Azhar Mahmood, Martin van Jaarsveld all took it in turns to have their way with us. Kent, of all teams, laughed at us. Even when, on the last day of the season, Kent were relegated our chuckles were hollow. Surrey could laugh at no-one.
Now we have the ego himself, Chris Adams, as our new coach. Great. A man who won all he had with Mushtaq Ahmed now finds his spin options as Chris “can’t bowl a hoop downhill © Nasser Hussain” Schofield and whatisname? He has Pedro Collins when we’d be better off with Edwin Collins. He has, at his disposal, Mike Brown from Hampshire. That name sends shivers down my spine! Ramps is suspended for a while for a spat with Sussex (and Murray Goodwin in particular) last season, so we bring in the Sussex hierarchy to coach the team. Where on earth is this mob going?
At least being in Division 2 of the County Championship my colleagues at work’s teams are all there with us. ZS and his Middlesex possee can visit the Mexicans at their leisure; while tally and shorty can wend their way down to Guildford to watch their blessed Essex Shotguns; even ‘Arry and my Beloved get the chance to laugh at us as Kent find themselves in with us in the basement. They can watch the luminaries from Derbyshire, Gloucestershire, Northants, Leicestershire and Glamorgan battle it out for laughing rights.
I’ll do what I can to post updates on the blog as the season unfolds, but just to keep all those new to here in the loop. I’m Surrey, and I’m embarrassed.
