Hi everyone!
Some Thoughts from Up in the Deckchairs
Warwickshire were the first visitors to Hove in Season 2026.
It was a pulsating game !!
Up in the Deckchairs there was plenty of chat about - what Michael Atherton, Cricket Correspondent of The Times, described as - Sussex’s “Winter of Woe”.
Please enjoy:
Crisis ? What Crisis?
Prime Minister Jim Callaghan has Sussex connections.
In retirement he lived at Upper Clayhill Farm, near Ringmer; barely 15 miles from the County Ground.
And - of course - in the first of the 1964 General Elections
he stood against Lord Ted.
When Ted’s candidacy was announced, John Charles had
just signed to play for Cardiff City. Callaghan noted dryly: “Mr Dexter is the
second sportsman to arrive in Cardiff this week. I think John Charles is likely
to prove the better investment.”
And so it proved. Jim increased his majority 9-fold
from 868 to 7,841.
Perhaps more pertinently Jim Callaghan was Chancellor of the Exchequer when - as PM Harold Wilson described it – the “Pound in your Pocket “ was devalued in 1968.
And within months of entering office as PM in 1976, Callaghan was faced with a Sterling crisis, which caused the Chancellor Denis Healey (who also retired to Sussex. He is buried with his wife Edna at St Andrew's Church, Alfriston) to ask the International Monetary Fund for a large loan of $3.9 billion (equivalent to $22.1 billion in current terms) to maintain the value of Sterling.
Jim certainly knew about Crisis ? What Crisis ?
---
Jim probably never actually said the headline in The Sun
Which may well have been “borrowed” from the Supertramp album of the same name which was released in 1975.
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Hove in 1908
3rd Deckchair from the Left ... Yes, it is me !!
Turning to the Game itself…
On the first morning Sussex had Warwickshire in trouble
at 22 for 3.
The visitors did well to recover to 267 all out, helped by a 7th wicket partnership between Kai Smith (the best wicketkeeper to have been at school in Kent since Knotty) and former Test player Chris Woakes (a school friend of BACA Principal Jack Davies). Debutant Tom Price and Henry Crocombe both took 3 wickets.
In reply Sussex were all out for 204, a deficit of 63.No batter scored 50, with Jack Carson ( watched by his Mum & Dad from Up in the Deckchairs) & new Sussex County Championship Captain Ollie Robinson (watched by his Step-Dad Sussex Coach Paul Farbrace) both scoring 39 in their 9th wicket partnership of 66.
In their 2nd Innings, Warwickshire’s total of 284 included a well-made 90 from Rob Yates. Fynn Hudson-Prentice ( who - like me - first appeared at the County Ground playing Softball Cricket on the Outfield in the Lunch interval) took 4 wickets and Ollie Robinson 3.
Sussex were set the tough total of 328 to win, which
would need to be the highest Innings score of the game.
When both the two Toms, Haines and Clark, and James Coles were out at 68 for 3, it looked even tougher.
But Daniel Hughes with 83 and debutant Jack Leaning 120 and Tom Price 70 saw the Mighty Sussex home for a 5 wickets victory.
After two games it is #2from2. Sussex is only County to have a100% record.
I should ‘fess up…
He had averaged only 15 in Division 2 in 2025 and I was
negative about Sussex signing Jack from the Old Rivals: Kent.
Which just goes to show that I am right … to let Mr Fabrace make all the Player Selection, whilst I concentrate on the Selection of Sandwich Filling !
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Watching from Up in the Deckchairs is never just about the Cricket.
Indeed, Mr Atheron was right that it has been a Winter of Woes for Sussex.
Athers visited Hove on Day 1:
His article in The Times has a quote from the Interim CEO, Mark West:
When I arrived in October I
thought: ‘We’re not going to make this; we’re not going to get out of the other
side.’
We didn’t have the cash to deliver the budget and that is where the ECB stepped in.
Crisis ? What Crisis ?
The ECB’s Press release on 2 February 2026 made very grim reading:
Sussex enters agreement with ECB following exceptional funding request
Under the agreement, Sussex Cricket has agreed to a number of conditions including:
·
Governance reforms including Sussex
undertaking an external evaluation of its Board’s skills and performance, and
the ECB having the ability to attend Sussex Board meetings and any relevant subcommittee
meetings.
·
Restrictions on men’s player salary
costs, with a limit imposed for the 2026, 2027 and 2028 seasons.
·
Sussex reducing the operating loss
it is currently budgeted to record in 2025/26.
·
A need to provide the ECB with
budgets and business plan for the next three financial years with the club
showing sustainable year-on-year operating profits by 2027/28.
In addition, Sussex will be subject to the following penalties:
·
An immediate points deduction of
50% of the maximum points available for one win in each men’s county
competition (inclusive of bonus points) for the 2026 season.
·
A suspended points deduction of 50%
of the maximum points available for one win in each men’s county competition
(inclusive of bonus points) for the 2027 and 2028 seasons should any of the
conditions be breached.
· A suspended fine of £100,000 which is only payable if any of the conditions be breached.
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As many of you will know, I’ve been watching my beloved
Sussex from Up in the Deckchairs for so many, many Seasons.
Would that there were the same number to go !!
One day, the Good Lord will say: “For you, Ol’ Ric,
there is only one day left.”
I will want to spend much of it Up in the Deckchairs.
Naturally; I have written the Blog already …
Sussex Win Final Ball Thrilla
Almost 66 years since Dad & I were at Lord Ted’s first home game as Sussex Captain on Saturday 7 May 1960, for the first time ever I brought along the Sussex Annual Report & Accounts.
A few of you reading the Blog will have played cricket
with me half a century & more ago on the village greens of Kent &
Sussex.
I was a hopeless Cricketer.
It may be but very little consolation to you when I tell that you that …
I was an even more hopeless Accountant.
I did try to read the Accounts; honestly.
But understanding them was beyond me.
No mention of the ECB’s Special Measures, noted above.
No mention that the Chair had resigned two days before the Audit Report was signed.
Why …
When the Accounts so clearly showed Sussex couldn’t pay its suppliers to contractual terms
(The Club’s amount owed to suppliers almost trebled rose from £359,000 to £1,035,000)
Why … would the Club decide to fully repay the Bank Overdraft which had been £606,000 the previous year end?
FWIW
I couldn’t find the repayment of the Bank Overdraft in
the Cash Flow Statement.
Probably was there somewhere … …
As I felt my eyelids start to close before my “well-deserved”
afternoon doze…
I felt a sense of professional shame.
Dad would have been so very disappointed in me that understanding the Accounts had proved beyond me.
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I love watching at Hove.
And I definitely want to end on a Positive Note.
One of the great features of the Ground is being able
to walk round the Outfield and especially to play Softball Cricket.
Just beyond the Deckchairs at the Cromwell Road end is a tarmac space between the Groundsman’s Shed and the Bar.
On Day 2 three young boys were playing Softball Cricket there.
Seeing them play, reminded me of page 205 of Field of Dreams; a Sussex Fan explains:
[The] father took his Eldest Son for his first visit to the ground at an early-season Championship game versus Gloucestershire in 1971.
After that initiation, armed with junior membership, he would set off from Holmes Avenue with his three younger brothers in tow. They'd leave their sandwiches and bottles of diluted lemon squash on the grass in front of the Hencoop (they knew it as the Cowshed) and then got on with the main business of the day - not watching the game but playing it.
They would invariably meet up with friends and they were always six to ten strong. Plenty for competitive matches out on the outfield during intervals, and straight onto the road behind the main scoreboard once play restarted.
"All you needed was a bat and
a tennis ball. The world was our oyster."
Over the many Seasons since 1971, he has been a very regular Sussex spectator, both home and away.
I specifically looked for him on Days 1 and 2. But no sign.
On Day 3 I could only stay until Lunch.
As I was heading to towards the Eaton Road exit …
(Don’t even get me started on why the Club has decided to save costs by closing the North East – Palmeira Avenue Gates on Days 3 & 4.
More - much more - in the next Blog !!)
09.30 hours on Day 3
As to what was about to happen ... If I hadn't been there myself, I simply wouldn't believe it !!
… I spoke with the Eldest Son’s wife.
Yes he was at the ground. His first visit this Season.
As I took the Long Walk along Eaton Road & up
Palmeira Avenue…
I was very relieved.
Young Jim was absolutely right:
As long as there’s cricket played at the County Ground, the light will shine undimmed.
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Plenty of Season 2026 still to come…
I really hope you will come down to Hove Actually … I’ve Saved a Deckchair for YOU!!!
After all ….
Why read a Lord Ric Cricket Blog, when you can star in your own.
See you soon!!
Lord Ric of Beckley Furnace
Dozing up in
the Deckchairs
PS
So,
who was the Eldest Son ?
Come
& watch with me Up in the Deckchairs.
Who
knows … He may well come & sit with us !!!
