Surrey part company with Clinton

Cricket

Grahame Clinton, the Surrey coach, yesterday parted company with the county by mutual consent. The 42-year-old, who joined the Surrey playing staff in 1979 after five years with Kent, took over the Second XI coaching two years after his retirement as a player.

In 1992, his first season in charge, he masterminded their double of the Rapid line Second XI Championship and Bain Clarkson Trophy. He took over first-team affairs after the departure of Geoff Arnold at the end of the following year.

But two subsequent seasons of unfulfilled promise under Clinton and a certain amount of dissatisfaction at the way the club is being run left members angry and frustrated and, at a special general meeting last month, the new chairman, Mike Soper, promised heads would roll.

Terry Alderman, the former Australian pace bowler, who was, until recently, coach of Western Australia, is being linked with the post alongside the former Surrey stalwart, Intikhab Alam, and another Australian, Dave Gilbert.