I QUOTE the guest list, “David Foot, Frank Keating, John Light”.

Add on Scyld Berry of Wisden and Sunday Telegraph game and you know in what circles I move. Writing this column opens such doors.

Foot and Keating, through their newspaper articles and books, have added so much to cricket literature, and now these heroes of my youth are the friends of my middle age.

We were all present at the launch of the long-awaited book on Arthur Milton (of which more will follow). John Mortimore, David Allen and Tony Brown added to the occasion. Those readers who will have grown up with Gloucestershire cricket can imagine my joy and pride at being there.

But what was happening on the field? How were the current Gloucestershire side performing? The easy answer was - badly, but something suddenly struck me. As we were talking of “a light, lean chap with buttercup hair” (I quote from the Milton book) there was another on the field.

Craig Miles was on leave from Filton College - he is in the equivalent of the lower sixth and making his county debut at 16! He looked every inch a cricketer and at 16 he is one for the future. Taking two wickets he was far from the worst of the county bowlers and in scoring 19 in a last wicket stand of 59 he enabled Will Gidman to reach a deserved century.

Will is a revelation. In the Northamptonshire match he scored 197 runs and was not dismissed, nor was he in the CB40 match at Cardiff. Have a word with brother Alex, Will, and suggest you bat at number five. You can also tell him how to play the ‘Tiflex’ ball.

Matches in the second division are played with a Tiflex ball that always swings, but then goes soft. It is easier batting in the second half of the innings - hence so many sides recover and those batting at six, seven and eight are scoring well. Spin bowlers are becoming redundant. One hundred and one wickets have fallen at Bristol this season, only five to spinners. This is a frightening statistic.

But no more frightening than the inability of the Gloucestershire batsmen to play the swinging ball. Novices Coughtrie and Cockbain have some excuse but not Alex Gidman, Kane Williamson and Jon Batty. Alex in particular gets ‘squared up’, and is becoming a serial failure in the first class game. He finds it easier in the CB40 played with the ‘Dukes’ ball - less movement and fewer slip fielders.

The Northampton match produced what I am certain is a first. When Jon Lewis and Craig Miles were bowling together it was surely the first time in cricket history that the two bowlers came from Swindon. I do, however, suspect something of Purton in Miles’ pedigree. Watch this space!

More news of former players - Rob Woodman is playing for Devon, Steve Adshead for Hereford and Kadeer Ali appeared for Leicestershire on Sunday.

With a professional staff of only 16 a last minute call to ‘Caddy’ meant that in front of TV cameras he made his Foxes debut in a borrowed shirt. Playing under an alias is obviously good for him. He got 60.

David Payne (2-22), and Ed Young (1-20) bowled well in the CB40 match at Cardiff. There are no other straws to clutch at.

There are good signs elsewhere however. An idea of John Bracewell (director of cricket) has been taken up by Steve Silk of the County Recreational Board and splendidly supported by the Lord’s Taverners who have donated appropriate sets of equipment. Under-nine festivals are to be held throughout the county.

This will involve the Cotswold and Stroud Associations as well as South Gloucestershire. Yet again an example of more cricket and better cricket for the youngsters of this county, and of the professional and recreational game working together. Well done former ‘Chief Cop’ Tim Brain, whose brief on the County Club Board is to see this happens.

In the interests of accuracy I must report that the two cricket defeats were not the lowest part of the weekend. Mrs Light suggested we watched the Eurovision Song Contest. Boom-blooming-bang-bang!

Do you agree with John? Have your say below.