NOT a ball was bowled in sunny Worcester as the New Road ground continued to dry out from flooding on what should have been the opening day of Kent's LV Championship match with fellow-strugglers Worcestershire.

With an over-riding stench of sewage wafting across a sodden outfield that, until Tuesday, remained under two-feet of water following the summer flood of June 26, Kent's players went shopping while their disgruntled supporters had their hopes of gaining compensation for hotel fees and match tickets well and truly quashed when Worcestershire's chief executive Mark Newton blasted that they could "get stuffed", adding: "And you can quote me."

Having made the decision to try and host the game at his club headquarters rather than move the fixture to nearby Kidderminster or accept Kent's offer of holding the match in Beckenham, Mr Newton attempted to justify his judgment in the face of growing criticism and an official complaint to the ECB by Kent.

In an impromptu briefing to the media in the New Road press box Mr Newton said: "I don't regret this decision one bit, it is open to criticism, but I don't regret it because what it did do was show this club has a real soul.

"Some things are more important than just a cricket match in the overall history of a club and this is without doubt the worst disaster that this club has ever befallen.

"The simple answer was Beckenham, the simple answer was Kidderminster, sometimes you take the tough decision because you've got to move on as quickly as possible and I don't regret doing that at all."

When asked why he had rejected Kent's offer to stage the game at the Worsley Bridge Road ground, Mr Newton said: "Beckenham was offered to us, but I don't think that was on a switch basis and it's so far back down the line that I just don't know (why he turned down the proposal)."

Then, when quizzed over whether he would listen to compensation claims from visiting fans Mr Newton added: "They can get stuffed, and you can quote me."

Mr Newton later apologised and qualified his statement in adding: "I will talk to everyone of them individually if they wish to be spoken to, as I do with my own members. We understand the feelings of everybody involved, we have done the best we can, but as with every situation of this type we will look at any individual requests (for compensation) that are sent in."

Meanwhile, Kent chief executive Paul Millman, who visited the ground in order to gauge conditions, said: "The team and our director of cricket Graham Ford were here on Saturday and 'Fordie' quickly made contact with me to say he felt this was an impossible situation.

"I rang ECB head of operations Alan Fordham and he told me there would be a pitch inspector at the ground, so I agreed that we would let the due ECB process takes its course.

"When I got here and actually saw the conditions, I think it is reasonable for me and the squad to feel very disappointed to arrive here in expectation of playing a championship game on a fully fit ground only to find it in this condition.

"We will let the ECB pitch inspector and the match umpires decide the course of the game, but I feel it only right to express our concern and disappointment that, with a ground available elsewhere in the county, our expectations for a four-day game of cricket on a decent wicket won't be fulfilled here at New Road.

"We were led to believe the ground would be fit for play and clearly it isn't. The key is, there were alternative venues in the county and we also offered our own facilities at Beckenham as an alternative even though we couldn't move it to Canterbury because of the Tour de France.

"To my mind we can't go out there and play a two, two-and-a-half day game on a Bunsen burner (turning pitch), that would be unacceptable, and I feel very sorry for those members from Kent who have come all this way to find the conditions as they are.

"Having seen the conditions now myself, I'm minded to put it to the ECB that this game should be abandoned because this is going to be unsatisfactory.

"We've come here for 20 points and every hour that is lost now lessens the likelihood of us achieving that aim. There is a strong case for finding another date in the diary to come back here and play this game in proper conditions.

"The ruling says fixtures can be moved if there are exceptional circumstances and clearly these are exceptional circumstances.

"I never had an answer from Mark (Newton) as to why they preferred not to come down to play this game in Beckenham, but they would have kept the gate receipts from that game."