Total cobblers...

I felt ever so slightly like the class sneak last night.

I mailed the moderators on the BBC 606 site about the comments made by some creature calling itself "Flipzingy" about Derbyshire and the players.

Don't get me wrong, I can take good hearted banter and enjoy a laugh with mates about the respective merits of our sides. Given that most of my pals support Scotland, I am usually in the ascendency, although a couple support Durham which leaves me with nowhere to go...

This idiot's comments annoyed me, partly because he obviously knew little about the game, partly because he was was making blanket comments about OUR team and then because he started making comments about individuals - self included.

Considering that he claimed to have "discovered" a 17 year old bowling 94mph and a leg spinning all rounder of county class elsewhere on the site, the best you could say for this character was that he was delusional (that's my big word for "nut job"). You could have said a whole lot worse.

The moderators first of all said that there was nothing wrong with his comments as he had declared himself a fan. Yeah and I'm Donald Bradman. When I pointed out that they contravened their own very obvious guidelines on posts, they were quick to remove them.

The chap (I'm assuming he was) reckoned that you could only be a cricket fan if you played the game, which really annoyed me. I know lots of people who have played the game rarely and when they did never made any real contribution. Yet their love for the game, its literature and its standards made mine almost pale to insignificance. I've played for my school and University first elevens, played good club cricket in and around the Bassetlaw League and in the Scottish Counties. I've coached junior sides to trophy success but I've never been a great player. Not for me the dashing century, the seven wicket hauls and the like. I've been the dogged forty, the partnership breaker with the ball and the bloke who (at least when I was younger) caught more than he dropped. My best performance was an unbeaten 50 in an all out score of 91 when my team won by 30-odd runs. I've never made a century, never taken five wickets in an innings. Yet with the fifties I've made and the 2 and 3-fors I've loved every minute.

Yet its not essential. I've played cricket for years with a couple of guys who have rarely made double figures, don't really bowl and only occasionally hold a catch. Yet the club would not exist without their love for the game, their work around the place, their diligence on the ground. They're always on the teamsheet for that and always will be. We've enough good players to carry them anyway and I'd sooner lose and have them with me than do so without them.

So that's why I got annoyed with zipthingy. Thinking about my mates and how a game wouldn't be the same without willing them to make contact with another agricultural heave, or hoping that their hands are in the approximate area of the ball when a catch goes their way. Plus all the other guys who like cricket for the craic, the beer, the atmosphere and all the good things in life.

After all, if participation was the only route into being a supporter, there's not many of those naked torsoed footie fans with their manly physiques and beer bellies would qualify.

And how many would follow Formula One?