New Dazzler

Glos top the T20 table after taking Northants apart, well done lads?

That was brilliant from Glos, dominated the Bears in all departments. I was a bit worried when they were matching us after the power play though! Tom Smith with a five wicket best ever performance from just 3 overs, but would agree that Cockbain batted Birmingham out of the match, so just shaded MOM. Thoroughly enjoyed that watching that!!

Well we nearly screwed it up, the boys just teased it out until the last 5 overs! Never in doubt?

2 needed now, not even Glos can screw this up??!

Yes good match, watching on the Glos TV stream, 4 wickets needed now, can only see a Glos win or a draw (famous last words!) as Warwickshire's run rate has slowed right up.

Tony Brown, former captain and very successful all round cricketer died aged 83 RIP. https://www.thecricketer.com/Topics/news/gloucestershire_cricket_captain_chairman_president_tony_brown_death.html

I love the way that this thread has brought the beautiful spirit of this forum to rise to the top, and forget our petty squabbles, to promote a feeling of love, help, and total support for all humanity.

This is as good a representation of the events at the time that I have seen on here, you have absolutely hit the nail on the head.

You, and the others who have pointed out the truth and facts of how this whole A8 saga played out, have hit many nails on the head, and yet we still have this ridiculous song about "8 men had a dream". They were all having nightmares on the pitch, as we fell from Division 1 and were fast approaching Division 4 with these players at the core of these abysmal performances and results. As you say, 5 of those players were integral to our promotion and/or performed admirably in the top flight. My personal opinion is that I would add David Rodgers to the 5 as his partnership in central defence alongside Norman Hunter in 78/79 was extremely effective, I would also say that Geoff Merrick was brilliant in getting us to the top flight, but he suffered being shuffled out to left back, and then lengthy spells out of the side due to injury. However, by 1982, as shown by the results and league position, these players were way past their best, and basically bleeding the club dry, as the administrators quickly realised that their contracts were unsustainable. It always makes me laugh/cry that anyone could seriously consider Aitken and (especially) Marshall to be Bristol City "heroes". I also think that if OTIB/Social Media had existed at the time, the view of the 8, and their performances in 1981/82, would have been torn to shreds by most on here. But back then we were drip fed news by the EP and local media (and in this case the national media) tended to make out the Ashton 8 as the victims and therefore the heroes who "saved" the club. As has been said, and nobody likes to see anyone lose their job, they had no choice, if the club had folded, they would not have got a penny in compensation. I don't think anyone who sees the 8 as visionaries with a "dream to save our team" wants to hear the truth about what happened. There has not been one serious counter argument to the "alterative" view from a few of us on this thread who were obviously there at the time (not just as kids under the age of 10), but quite a lot of happy-clappy "we must name the stadium after the A8" nonsense. I also get the impression that, as NTB alluded to, that many on here have had the story handed down to them, and don't want the facts to get in the way of their perception of this part of our history.

Totally agree with that, from the Glos point of view Benny Howell (who I'm sure would be knocking on the England T20/ODI door if he played for Surrey or Yorkshire) pockets £75k, and David Payne and Ryan Higgins each getting £40k for a few weeks of "cricket"

Haha, was typing my "99.9 %" quote at exactly the same time as you, actually I think we are both wrong. I think the figure is 100%!

As I get notifications from the ECB on my Facebook feed and, sometimes when "an announcement" is made about this competition I read some of the hundreds of comments about this farce. I would say that at least 99.9% of comments are basically against this competition, and these obviously from a broad church of cricket fans be they supporters of International/County Cricket red/white ball cricket. One of the ECB reasons for introducing this is to attract "new" fans who have no interest in cricket! So I think it is not a matter of hoping it will fail, it will be a miracle if it doesn't fail. Locally, I am a big Glos fan and, although I love Test cricket and the red ball game generally, time and convenience means I generally only to go to T20s and England ODIs/T20 at the Bristol County Ground. I will NOT be going to watch my "local team" Welsh Fire at Cardiff. I very much doubt if any Welsh cricket fans will be going either.. Even if Bristol had been chosen to represent the West Country and/or Wales I would not go. So if cricket fans are almost universally dissing this thing, and they are looking to attract new cricket fans, who the hell will be going? Even worse is the fact that the ECB are still going ahead with it despite the opposition from cricket fans!

Good win for Glos, wrapped it up in less than an hour.

Here we go! https://www.wccc.co.uk/match-centre/#m0b83d7b7-d893-41c2-b1ba-be3d0534999a

I think all of us Glos fans have a feeling that this won't be a walk in the park!

Just saw him bowl Finch on the live stream on the Worcs. web site! (can't see a stream on the Glos site).

Let's hope he's not needed in the run chase!!

He is a genuine all rounder (totally crap at everything). With no wickets and conceding a bucketful of runs, his total of 3 runs at an average of 1.5 means his batting is slightly better than his bowling. I do not know if he had any commitments (so not sure if this would have been possible), but surely they could have kept AJ Tye for a few weeks of red ball cricket. Or actually any one of us would have done better! Not to mention what were they thinking about signing a player who has been suspended due to homophobic abuse!

Now 0-94 off 16, no maidens. Payne and Higgins have bowled a combined 15 maidens from 40 overs, plus Payne has taken 3 wickets! However, as we all know, OTIB is not a place where players are written off after one poor start?.

Mid order collapse followed by a bit of a recovery, but disappointing but, as Sir Geoffrey Boycott once said, "you don't know how good a score is on any pitch until both sides have batted"! Unless, of course, one side outplays the other!

Just saw this on my facebook feed, looks like they have sold over 75% which if the Somerset game is anything to go by is 6,000 out of 8,000. So gradually getting the tickets shifted, not forgetting there will be a large contingent of Gas walking down Muller Road. They are probably not used to the process of purchasing tickets for a sporting occassion in advance, so could be hundreds locked out on the night! 75% of Quarter-Final tickets sold ??️ 75% of tickets have already been sold for the highly anticipated Vitality Blast Quarter-Final between Glos and Derbyshire on Saturday 7th September. Be part of the action on Saturday night!! Don't miss out, book now

Well they reckon they sold over 50% of the tickets by Sunday morning, having only had the fixture confirmed around 10 o'clock on Friday night, so hopefully will be a near sell out if not a total sell out. Anyway, still looking forward to it?

Tickets arrived this morning for the Glos v Derby QF on Saturday night. Weather forecast is for a dry day/evening, looking forward to this one. Anyone else going?

Well, it is the Taunton Boys' "Big Day Out"!?

I think that Sky have chosen that classic local derby of the Birmingham Bears v the Worcestershire Rapids ahead of Glos v Somerset!