KENT'S bid to quell membership unrest met with mixed success at a members' forum held at the county's Canterbury headquarters.

Supporters from all over the country attended the two-hour meeting in search of answers following the blackest month in recent club history.

Some pundits and fans had called for heads to roll following a mixed season of championship title chasing and limited overs demotion, but the majority left the meeting reflecting on hard facts rather than the crumbs of truth they had been fed throughout a summer of mistrust.

Ed Smith's exit to Middlesex and the defection of the hugely promising Alex Loudon to Warwickshire served to fuel an already disenchanted membership, leaving the management triumvirate of Graham Johnson, David Fulton and Simon Willis with a hard task of appeasement.

Yet Johnson's no-nonsense approach on the tiller, Fulton's honesty in admitting to errors of judgement and Willis's determination to make the new coaching structure work seemingly went a long way to keeping blood off the carpet.

Johnson, a tough-talking players' representative during his days in the dressing room, took a couple of early blows on the chin after conceding that errors had been made. He ended with a call to supporterrs to back a new regime of change.

Earlier Johnson revealed the reasons behind recent player departures, Mark Ealham's move to Nottinghamshire last spring, the fall-out between acting skipper Smith with Rob Key and Andrew Symonds at New Road and the subsequent resignation of Mike Denness as chairman of cricket.

"Looking back, the day things started to change for the better was when we picked the side for the game with Sussex in Canterbury on August 3," said Johnson.

"We had just lost by an innings at Hove, but a lot of the youngsters stood up and performed magnificently after that and I can't fault the guys for what they've done on the field since that day.

"We agreed to park all other issues until the end of the season and that's what we've done. With the Ealham issue, that cricket committee decision at the end of last season was not an easy one, but ultimately we concluded that the contract we would put in front of Mark was a one-year one.

"We could not meet Mark's desire for a longer term contract and we don't begrudge him his subsequent success at Nottinghamshire.

"As for the Worcester incident, in preparation for that game David (Fulton) and the cricket management met with the players to explain what was expected of them in David's absence out on the field.

"There was an instance that two of our players did not support Ed Smith as captain and David and Simon Willis did absolutely the right thing in reporting the facts to Mike Denness.

"Mike took responsibility for handling that issue, but although there were a lot of meetings there was no decision as to what should happen and no action was taken for some time.

"I revisited that after I took over and I can tell you that action has now been taken against two of the individuals involved (Andrew Symonds and Rob Key).

"Rob apologised to Ed later on, but there were some outstanding issues between the other two.

"As long as I'm chairman of cricket, if another incident like that happens, then everyone will be made very clear as to where the buck stops and that action will be taken as soon as possible."

Johnson confirmed that the fall out did, however, impact Smith's decision to leave the club, but that the player also mooted other reasons.

"The amount of effort to keep Ed at the club has been enormous but finally we could not persuade him to stay," said Johnson. "In his words, there was a push and a pull for the move to Middlesex.

"The push was being scarred by the Worcester incident and some of his experiences afterwards, the pull was to go to Middlesex, which he sees as a great move forward.

"He described his reasons for leaving in summary as losing his faith in the leadership of Kent. He will describe that leadership in three parts, captaincy, the executive of the club and thirdly, the cricket committee.

"The cricket committee has put up its hands and said we are partly responsible and we accept we could have done more."

Club captain Fulton said aspects of Smith's book On And Off The Field - a diary of the 2003 season, had upset him and other squad members.

"On a subject as sensitive as my eye injury I thought Ed should have had the decency to phone me up and run what he was going to write about April 11 past me," said Fulton.

"I thought he got it wide of the mark as he implies I was a bit gung ho and reckless in my practice.

"It was never my intention to take legal action against Ed, but my solicitor required a confirmation letter from Ed that my practice is nothing other than absolutely professional.

"He's in the process of getting that letter to me.

"There are a couple of other pieces in the book I challenged him on and said my piece to him face to face."

Fulton was adamant that Symonds should not be made to carry the can for Smith's exit for Lord's, but agreed that the Australian's period as stand-in twenty20 skipper had proved difficult.

"The full details of what had happened at Worcester had not come out when I appointed Andrew as our Twenty20 captain," added Fulton. I gave him 100 per cent backing, I basically said it was his team and that was a mistake.

"With hindsight it was a bad call because we were a shambles but, that said, I wouldn't swap 'Symo' for any other overseas player in the world and no way should he be made scapegoat for all this.

"Sure he got things wrong, but he felt strongly that what he did was right for Kent cricket."

Fulton said that contract talks with Michael Carberry and Alamgir Sheriyar were still on-going, while Johnson revealed that Loudon left despite being offered the vice captaincy for next summer.

"Alex's decision was made on a couple of factors, the first was opportunity and two that he wanted to prove himself as a player before thinking of anything else," said Johnson.

"His feeling was that John Inverarity and Nick Knight at Edgbaston would give him a better opportunity of development than by staying at Kent.

"In both Ed and Alex's case, money was certainly not a factor but we now have to move on and wish them well."

Johnson also admitted for the first time that former Kent skipper Matthew Fleming had been consulted over cricketing issues since the dressing room wrangle in June.

He also told the meeting that Kent would strive for a more 'balanced' approach to signing overseas players and that they would not follow other counties by cramming the side with EU qualified players.

He added that economic realities and value for money would remain high on the cricket committee's agenda for 2005 before the meeting closed with a short presentation from coaching co-ordinator Willis on coaching structure.