Beginning and end of seasons.

Last Tuesday I was at the Amex to see Brighton beat Birmingham 3-1. It was hardly a vintage performance but 6 points were taken from Blackburn and a lowly Midland club whilst Fulham only managed 1 against Blackburn and a lowly midland club. Winning ugly is the name of the game or rather promotion. The only drawback was the injury to Lewis Dunk. He joins the injury list which has decimated our defence. Shaun Duffy is out for the season so is Connor Godston with a heart problem. At various stages we have lost Leroy Resonoir and Gaetan Bong at left back and Pocognoli is still out. I can see loanee Fikayo Tomori feature in the promotion photo and a few years later Seagull fans trying to remember whom he was. The general view is that Wigan on Easter Monday will be the promotion game but Huddersfield won 3-0 last night and are doggedly tracking us with 2 games in hand.

Yesterday we at our Players club resplendent in our blue striped blazers were invited to the press day of Sussex CCC and feature in the team photograph. It’s a nice touch that would not occur to its equivalent the 1901 Club in Brighton HAFC.

I chatted to the BBC Sussex cricket commentator. He was knowledgable and friendly but I wonder if some career move had bypassed him. Did he once work with a famous commentator who went onto TMS? We were joined by a cameraman who had no brief but said he want to film as much as possible to show as little as possible. This he said was confusing. It confused me.

Sussex with Tymal Mills, Chris Jordan , Luke Wright and Souht Africans Van Zyl and Wiese should do much better in the white ball game. We are fourth favourites in division two. To do better than last season we need to get more batting points.

I am a bit of a sucker for Sussex CCC history and spent some time studying the wooden boards in the pavilion. One listed Sussex test cricketers. Of course we all remember the Reverend David Sheppard, Ted Dexter, Jim Parks and John Snow but James Kirkley, Paul Parker, Tony Pigott all played a handful of tests for their country. Yet it was two overseas players Mushtaq Ahmed with his whirling leg spin and run machine Murray Goodwin (26,000 runs for the county) who won us our first championship in 2003. Ironically the gritty skipper of that side Chris Adams never won an England cap at Sussex.

Chatting to Doug Heath, he made the point that time was during the overlap of cricket and soccer seasons, some sportsmen notably his hero Denis Compton, played both. Geoff Hurst and Johnny Haynes were able wicket keepers and more recently Gary Lineker and Phil Neville could have had cricketing careers. Ted Dexter was a scratch golfer whilst our present Chief Executive Rob Andrew best known as a fly half has a first class century to his credit. Mike Smith of Warwickshire was probably the best at rugger and cricket. Sussex boast the finest all round sportsman of all, CB Fry. He represented Oxford University in athletics and rugby, was world long jump champion, played in a Cup Final for Southampton and was a top class cricketer amassing over 30,000 runs.