The ashtray...

One of my all time cricketing heroes, Derek Underwood has died.

Being here, in Kent, it wasn't difficult to support and watch the great man spinning his way to victory in so many matches, and I was always bewitched by his sessions with open-mouthed awe, seeing him on TV so often with my dad, and much later at the county ground with a pint in my hand!

When I worked for a great company in Canterbury, he had been offered his Benefit Year, and, as we had a sponsorship deal with KCCC, it meant we had a board up at the boundary, so we got quite a lot of publicity from it all as well! That Summer, we took a box in the Members' Stand, and invited several guests along, to celebrate Derek's Benefit occasion.

He made sure that he visited every sponsor and benefactor, and personally chatted with as many guests as he could! I had a lovely handwritten letter from him, thanking us all for our contributions, and for me to shake his hand on that big day, was a triumph which I will never forget.

And why the title?

One of the ground staff at Canterbury once told me that his corner of the dressing room had that name as he liked the odd smoke now and then...

He's still a hero!

R.I.P. Derek - St Paul hasn't a chance outside the off stump!