Weston Saint

It was Lowe's decision. He thought he had an agreement with Barclays Bank to fund the deal but after it was done we all know what Barclays did. They denied they had agreed and pulled the plug on our finances by insisting a large chunk of our overdraft was paid off. There was no Arsenal connection whatsoever. This information came to me from a Director of the time and who is still a good friend.

He was rested. He was there and in the dug out. He ran onto the pitch with drinks etc as 12th man

Was a good win and the players were buzzing after. Spoke to Woody before the game. He played in the 2nds 3 day win against Sussex but has a slight side strain of not risked. that Gave Crane his chance. Raj Maru was singing his praises to me a few years ago and he does look good. However, Briggs is our main spinner and we will not often go into a 4 day game with 2 front line spinners. Even Udal struggled to get games when Warne played. Sean Terry will continue to open in the next championship game against Durham on Sunday week.

Not sure why you have to be so sarcastic. I have only pointed out facts. I am lucky enough to have access to the Coaches, Players, Players families, (mostly Mums and Dads), Directors, Umpires and Media. I am careful what I post and only release what I know is not sensitive. Maybe I am leaning towards the club but hey, I support Hampshire CCC.

Tom Alsop (opening) scored 195 for the seconds against Sussex seconds at Ageas Bowl yesterday. His opening partner Joe Weatherley scored 118 I thought most of our top 5 were just out of form but the longer the season goes the more I feel we have just not adapted to the better bowling in the 1st Division. there is a big difference. Although depressing, we should not panic and throw the youngsters in. They need time to develop. If we go down this season, and it looks increasingly likely, it will give us time to develop the younger players. Is it the coaching staff? They seem to be working hard with a lot going on behind the scenes. Maybe they lack experience but if they learn from this year it will set us up well for the future.

If it is true that AM missed the deadline then what did we do before the deadline....Did we indicate in writing that we wanted to exercise our option? Seems to me to be smokescreen put up by Saints to counter Spurs leaks. We will have to wait and see!

Might all be in the contract wording. We know Saints can purchase for a fixed fee and we also know AM can decide to keep him by waiving the loan fee of £1.5m. Argument might be that if AM call him back and then sell him they are breaching the contract. Not any easy one to let the courts decide.

All getting a bit tasty. Sky sources saying that Saints think they have a contract with AM to purchase Toby and that if they sell to Spurs or anyone else Saints will take legal action.

BBC Solent Sport ‏@solentsport 2 hrs2 hours ago Result of @hantscricket appeal - ECB decide that a further TWO disciplinary breaches will trigger original points penalty

Ervine out for 6 weeks after having a pin inserted in his broken finger. Big blow in my opinion

liam dawson ‏@daws128 To clarify I'm going on loan as I want to play first team cricket, Thanks to Hampshire for agreeing to it.

So now we are to loan out Dawson as they cannot find a place for him in the first team for either Championship or 1 day Cricket despite all the investment put into the Academy and Colts. Decent spinner with 94 wickets at 36.70 but Briggs is the team spinner. One of the best 2nd slip catches in England, a decent batsman with 4600 runs to his name at 32.62. Yet we have Gatting in the side who is an import and a year older, has an average of 27.49 and has a big weakness outside of off stump, only two wickets and not a slip fielder of any note! Feel very sorry for Liam but whispers have been about for a few weeks now. I suspect he has been the one pushing the issue of late At least he should get first team cricket and hopefully prove to our club that he is an asset and Hampshire through and through. Likewise it should mean Sean Terry should have a run in the side to see if he can emulate his dad as a Hampshire opener.

I will just comment on your dig at the coaches over Wood's decline. I did post it a few weeks ago And they do have a batting coach. Tony Middleton

Except I am a moderate conservative and always have been. Cannot stand the UKIP or what it stands for. I was merely making a comment on what I thought would happen but many of you say that is not so. Fair enough!

Let us not forget that if they default and leave the EU then all the Greeks in Europe no longer have the freedom of movement at will be classed as jolly foreigners. Same with us. If we leave after the referendum next year all those living in Spain and Portugal on the same freedom of movement will have to come home to a cold Britain again. No wonder they want a vote!!

Another very poor day apart from Gatting. Our batting has lost all confidence at present! Our bowling is weak. We have made a big mistake with Bird. He is not good enough to fit the overseas position so far and he has had enough time. No balls and at least one 4 per over is just not good enough. Wheal is a rooky playing his first year of 4 day cricket. Tomlinson is either injured or rested. Either way he has not been up to standard this season. Edwards is not back until end of July. By then it might be too late! As for up and coming Tom Alsop 19 - Left Hand Bat who is also a Wicket Keeper - England Under 19 Lewis McManus 20 - Wicket Keeper who is also a decent bat - England Under 19 Brad Taylor 18 - Right Arm Offbreak - England Under 19 Tom Barber 19 - Left Arm Fast Medium - England under 19 All are part of the First Team Squad but not ready yet.

Cannot understand why Dawson is not playing! He was in the squad for Fridays T20 which was strange as he was playing for the seconds in a 50 over against Essex at Ageas owl which we won. Then he was in the squad for today and is on the scorecard produced! I am not at Lords but have sent a text to get a friend of mine to see if he can find out the reason. Dawson did react to his poor LBW decision last week. I wonder if the two are linked!

Many have said it before and I am not going to apologise for saying it again, we are not a big club. Manchester Utd, City, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, and Spurs are the big 6. They are constantly in that group that others like us strive to break but we have not yet! We have a rich owner but she is astute and wants the club to be self financing. I agree and it is so much more satisfying to see we are genuine challengers with that philosophy We do not have the income streams to be able to pay the top players the money they desire. The top 6 do. We have to prove ourselves over a longer period of time to persuade players who want regular European football that we can constantly deliver. This coming season will be the start of that process but the players who are moving on are impatient to have that reassurance. The top 6 sides, through their track record and money, can give that now. We are replenishing with good players (excluding our Academy for the purposes of this discussion) so other team supporters may look at us with anger or envy just as we are doing with the top 6. We have not yet arrived but the top 6 know we are breathing down their necks and our reputation is building. We need to have a similar season in 2015/16 to keep the pressure on the other 6 and do well in the Europa Cup to enhance our reputation further afield. In the meantime we will have to accept we will lose our best and ambitious players each year.

You had to be there to understand what was happening. Yes we were outplayed by an accurate bowling team. No doubt about that but some of the balls our players got out to were near unplayable and Dawson second innings was a definite bat pad not lbw. We all heard two noises and Dawson's reaction said it all. Hope we do not have a further disciplinary issue!! It was not until the afternoon that the wicket settled. We had far the worse conditions when batting. It seamed, spat and kept low. Somerset bowlers knew how to use it best with line and length. Team is together but not firing. Tomo has bowled worse than I have seen him for a while. He did injure his toe on the first day but this is not the first bad match for him. Ervine has broken a finger. Bird does not look worth his overseas status. He must be the only Australian bowler who cannot bat! On a brighter note the club are aware Edwards wants a permanent deal and are in talks. He is very happy here which answers anyone who asks what the dressing room is like.

Before you start your criticism of Mr Bransgrove you should have done some research. He no longer puts money into the club. He has no influence over the playing team or recruitment. He is merely a figurehead Chairman now although of course they listen to his wise counsel when they ask him. The club has Bransgrove as Chairman of the board, MD/Financial Director who is David Mann, Commercial Director who is Stuart Robinson (the man who invented the T20 format when at the ECB) and Tim Tremlett who is Company Secretary Giles White is director of Cricket and the one responsible for recruitment/contracts etc. Dale Benkenstein is First Team Coach, Tony Middleton is 1st Team Batting Coach. Charlie Freeston and Craig White are 2nd Team Coaches and Bobby Parks is the Academy Director Why keep going on about Bates! he may be the best gloveman but he is no batsman. He scored a few 4's but otherwise looked his old awkward self. We love him to bits at the Ageas Bowl Who would you drop and who would you bring in? We are back in the 1st division after a splendid season in 2014. We at the Ageas Bowl all knew it was going to be tough. Look at the number of teams that go up only to come down again. 7th in the table will be a decent result for us. You can only blood the occasional second 11 player. We are doing that with Terry and a young Wheal.

I doubt Saints are insisting he put in a transfer request to avoid paying bonuses. If he runs down his contract we get nothing and we have already turned down £10m from Liverpool. What they want is for Clyne to say I am signing or I am not signing. If the latter they will sell him now.

Taking all into account this was a pretty even day Tomlinson suffered an injury early on (not sure what but he was limping) and after that was bowling off about 7 paces. Bird bowled ok and better with the second new ball but for me he is either not fully up to speed, match fitness wise or not as good as we thought he would be. Berg was his usual reliable self. Dawson dropped Hildreth in the slips when he was on about 12 and that proved costly. However he made up for it with a couple of decent wickets. Wicket looks good for batting. Oh and Michael Bates got a good round of applause when he came to the wicket. Scored two cracking 4's off Tomlinson!

Could have done but passport ran out and I was excluded!

And the winner is ME! 171 points moving up fro 3rd to top in the last game