GRAHAM JOHNSON won a number of nicknames during 21 seasons with Kent, one of the favourites being ‘UFO’ which alluded to his particular brand of flighted off-spinners.

An adaptable, intelligent and occasionally out-spoken cricketer, Johnson scored 12,500 runs, claimed 560 wickets and bagged 302 catches in a 376-match career.

Though he was studying for a degree at the London School of Economics when he joined the Kent staff in 1965, Johnson was a cricketing novice with an uncertain future.

At first a bit-part player who filled in for the Test absentees, he became an integral member of the championship winning sides of 1970 and 1978.

It speaks volumes for his determined character that Johnson won the admiration of a hugely successful Kent dressing room full of internationals. His reputation for straight talking ensured popularity amongst his peers, but perhaps also goes someway to explaining why the club committee overlooked him for the captaincy.

Now, some 19 years after hanging up his bowling boots, Johnson has agreed to take time out from his recruitment and consultancy business to become the county’s new chairman of cricket, the role controversially vacated mid-season by Mike Denness.

So is Johnson poacher turned gamekeeper? Or does he plan to bring the same no-nonsense approach of his playing days to the inner sanctum of the Kent committee room?

Having turned his back on the corporate world of the City finance, Johnson now works for a small Croydon-based firm specialising in research, recruitment and people development. Though he has some free time to develop his honorary role as chairman of cricket, Johnson will have to combine cricket watching with earning a crust.

He said: “I am a working man and need to earn an income, so have to look at where I feel I can add value. There is a school of thought that says a cricket chairman should be at games more often than not, but I’m not able to do that and that’s why I spent a while deciding whether to take the job on.

"All things being equal, the team will run itself effectively and you will never get problems if we, as a committee, have helped pick the right team, the right captain, the right coaching structure and the right overseas players.

“If they then go out and win, then everyone’s happy, so my ambition is to get those basics right so that people know their roles, the players know who’s responsible for what, and then I can leave the guys to get on and do it.”

Johnson took over the post on July 23 and attended Kent’s game against Sussex to introduce his policies to a dressing room that had been rocked by in-fighting and the resignation of their former chairman.

“I didn’t say too much to the players. I wanted to meet them all and explain to them the issues involved and what I stand for. I then got the cricket committee together to look at our strategy to move things forward.

“I feel we’ve learned a lot this season. We’ve learned that Kent have delivered some very talented players to England and that’s no mean feat. But we’ve also learned that if you take two or three England players out of the Kent side you are asking an awful lot of young players to step up to the mark and take over.

“The team got off to a good start in four-day cricket but never came to terms with one-day cricket. That, coupled with a difficult season in terms of overseas players, largely due to injury and the profusion of international fixtures, all disrupted our progress after a good start.

“The thing to learn from all this, going forward, is that despite the problems of this season our performance potential as a side continues to go up. We have some great young quickies and a pretty solid batting line-up. But take Symonds out of the side, he’s three cricketers in one, it’s bound to upset the balance of the team, so next year we must work with the youngsters and help them to step up a level.

“We have to make sure the quicks have an opportunity to start next season with more experience and confidence and injury free, and work on the way the whole team interacts. We don’t want the side to lose confidence as quickly as it did this year. We can do that in a number of ways and the first way will be to look at the make-up of the staff for next year.

“The potential is high, what we have to get from here on is the performance delivery at a higher level than it’s been this year. There’s no body more disappointed with the one-day performances than the players themselves, they are ambitious and they want to deliver for the supporters.

“One thing I am clear on is that I don’t want our team to go out and be accused by supporters of dropping their heads and not trying. They are trying, they are practising hard and they are doing their best to get the basics right, okay that’s not translating into results at the moment, but if they keep doing the basics right they will.”

Johnson confirmed that the club would be looking to strengthen the squad for 2005, but was quick to point out that they would not be breaking the bank.

“We have to be realistic and say that Kent could mortgage its future and risk the club by going out to buy all of the players, but that would completely blow the budget. You can’t do all the things you want to do, but there is more movement of players between counties now and although we have a great tradition of developing our own talent you do have to look at the best of the rest.

“People have questioned some of the choices we have made in the past, but we have to back our local talent first and get a better balance.

“We wouldn’t be doing our job if we didn’t look hard at this past season and carrying out a review of all cricket matters. That includes strategy, management, captaincy, the coaching structure, the whole thing.

“We’re working on our priorities for next year now, we’ve written approach letters for players who meet the requirements we are looking for. It’s a delicate subject and we have to take it step by step because the balance of your staff is affected by who might not want another contract.

“The 28-day approach system in place now is more ‘honest’ than it has been in the past, so its not as if you get to the end of the season and think who’s coming and who’s staying. It’s more of a continual process now, but it’s very difficult to stop the corridor conversations by players who are looking to get away.”

Kent created an unenviable record by using five overseas players this year, which has been another unsettling factor and is an area Johnson also wants to address.

“I know that Sussex have had the same overseas players for a couple of seasons and that gives a certain amount of stability if you can find the right players. To get people who are guaranteed to be with you for the whole season isn’t easy, so you’re looking at youngsters on the fringes of Test cricket or someone who has retired from international cricket.

“In the last two or three years there have been more changes than we would want and yes that stability would be great, but it has to fit the balance and has to be at the right price.

“We do keep a very tight control on the economics though, and it would be wrong to assume that just because we’ve had five overseas players this year that it’s more expensive than having two for the whole period.”