FORMER Kent captain Mike Denness hopes his decision to quit as the club’s chairman of cricket will make the county’s players sit up and think about their attitude and demeanour.

The 64-year-old former England skipper resigned from the chairmanship and his committee role on July 10, a decision the club finally announced almost three weeks later with a three-line press release that cited “personal and cricketing reasons”.

Denness was back at St Lawrence to enjoy Canterbury Cricket Week with his old opening partner, Brian Luckhurst, this year’s Kent president, but he also shed some light on his departure and refuted the gist of the club’s press release.

He said: “There were events and matters going on, in the dressing room and on the field, that didn’t please me at all.

“This is a voluntary job, not a paid one, so there are bound to be matters you will disagree with but are relatively powerless to prevent, but if you’re in charge as a chairman, I feel you should be one step ahead.

“There have been some recent cricketing events I felt I should have been one step ahead of and in a position to try and nip in the bud.

“I didn’t read those situations as well as I might and, when some of those things became personal, I decided ‘I don’t like this’ and started to wonder why the hell do I want to continue with this? I would far rather enjoy watching my cricket and do so from afar.”

Alluding to the first day of championship cricket at Worcester, where acting captain Ed Smith took to the field with little support from some senior players in the side, Denness added: “Things happened at Maidstone during the Twenty20s I wasn’t happy with, then there were more issues at New Road.

“There was a ‘big barny’ at Worcester and it continued thereafter. I was trying to make sure things would be put to bed as soon as possible, but they weren’t.

“The club is bigger than any individual, even if they are senior players, but things continued when I felt they should have stopped.

“If the players now realise their chairman has resigned because of their own stupidity and conduct, then my resignation will have been worthwhile.

“I hope, after me going, they all come to the party and ensure that this type of behaviour never happens again.

“If this works the right way it will send a message to the lads that I thought their behaviour was despicable and I’ve walked away from it because I couldn’t control it.

“It has simmered on and on and it’s not what I expect from Kent cricketers or people playing the game.

“If you have a happy dressing room then you have a good chance of success on the field. But if you have discord in the dressing room, then you aren’t going anywhere as a club, I don’t care who you are.

“Our Kent side of the 1970s, all the characters we had weren’t the easiest to get on with and we had several nationalities too, but we gelled together.”

Denness also confirmed he and the club failed to agree over the text of the press release announcing his departure, and was surprised when his own release was binned in favour of the county’s own wording.

“I was very disappointed with what went out because I didn’t want them to use the words they did.

“The county felt my wording was too strong maybe, but when I worked in public relations my superiors used to say you put good quotes in and always tell the truth.

“It didn’t care how long the release was or even whether they thanked me or not, I just wanted to put a quote in so that people could see why I’d given up.

“That was disappointing, but I’ve no axes to grind with Paul Millman or the club, because Paul has been very open with me. Maybe the strings were being pulled from elsewhere?

“I’m not walking away from a sinking ship, and my health couldn’t be better, so I’ll watch Kent when it suits me from now on and wish Grahame Johnson all the best as my successor.”