RICHARD CLARKE
AKA The Grumbler

Time’s up: Daryl Mitchell heads a long list of County Championship stalwarts who have announced their retirements this summer
PICTURE: Alamy

I always try to catch the last day of the Championship season. Call me a sentimental old fool but, at the close, I normally clap off the team, walk around the ground one last time and then, after a long, lingering look, head off home towards winter.
Perhaps it is linked with my childhood when the end of the campaign meant school was back in. It was the autumn term and, when I was growing up in the dark day...