I love the early championship fixtures. Spring has arrived, the sun is creeping out (well, occasionally), the magnolias are in bloom, and young England hopefuls get the chance to impress the selectors. What’s more, there are no domestic white ball distractions. It’s first class cricket all the way – unless you’re glued [...]

Who will be crowned this year's champions? I really have no idea. A newly promoted club tipped for relegation won the title last year whilst the reigning champions got relegated. It was just the kind of boring and predictable season you'd expect from a competition nobody likes and everyone expects to die. [...]

Timothy St. Ather, a leading figure in a fans' rebellion at Lancashire, has had his lifetime membership of the club cancelled, writes Barry Turner. St. Ather was sent a letter of dismissal along with a cheque for £1045, the amount he paid for lifetime members' status more than 20 years ago. The move [...]

It seems that emotions are running high at Old Trafford. And it's got nothing to do with Jos Buttler's prediction that test cricket could be extinct (with T20 becoming the only form of the game) in twenty years' time. Here's Barry Turner, a Lancs fan through and through, with the latest developments. [...]

As everyone seems to be calling the NHS "our NHS" these days, I think it's about time we renamed the championship "our county championship". We all love it to bits but, like the NHS, it's a bit sick. The ECB focus on T20 is pushing the competition to the fringes of the [...]

Christmas might be over but here at TFT we just keep giving. In fact, we're giving you ordinary plebs the opportunity to join (well, apply for) a position on the ECB's shiny new T20 Board as independent directors. Here's the Job Description which was passed to me by one of our many rebel [...]

There's no doubt that the sidelining of the county championship is playing a big part in England's latest Ashes debacle. As I mentioned after Adelaide, my team Worcs will only have two championship clashes at New Road between early May and September next year. And when the new city T20 begins in [...]

First class cricket is dead. It's boring, predictable, and nobody likes it. In fact, the only way to save it is to make the players wear coloured clothing, play music every time there's a boundary, and cut the duration of matches to two days. Oh, and scrap the counties and create artificial [...]

Essex eh? You either love them or loathe them. There was a time when the Essex mafia dominated English cricket. Names like Gooch, Foster and Pringle were synonymous with the England team. Latterly of course, it's all been about Andy Flower and Alastair Cook. Just don't mention the name James Foster, or [...]