BACK to reality. A feeble display from the Gloucestershire county cricket team has brought me from a Wembley high to a Trent Bridge low.

It took a surgeon’s knife, skilfully wielded by manager Mark Cooper to get Forest Green Rovers to Wembley. Is the same severe but splendidly effective surgery needed at Bristol?

Captain Gareth Roderick is not yet being selected for personal reasons and with David Payne (hernia) and Liam Norwell (back) missing the squad looks very thin.

The performance at Trent Bridge was threadbare. After the disastrous decision to put Notts into bat we were always chasing the game. We never caught up. Our opponents were rapidly out of sight.

Criticism is meaningless without suggestions for improvement and short term and longer term ideas follow.

Loan players are needed. This idea was mooted in this column six weeks ago. I believe Surrey and Middlesex as well as Yorkshire have been approached. Try again please. Now.

Ian Cockbain is scoring plenty of runs. He is too good to be kept to limited over cricket. Put him in the Championship side now. We do not have a big enough squad for the luxury of employing one-day specialists. Benny Howell is also a good enough cricketer to play both forms of the game.

Medium term more money must be invested in cricket. The reasons for this are obvious, the need essential.

Also essential is a root and branch look at our whole cricket set-up.

There are two former players on the executive board, Andy Brassington and David Partridge. They can and must make a positive impact in this area. If that means any individual involved on the field or off it is shaken out of their comfort zone so be it.

If you think this is harsh then look at the facts. It is not yet June and we are out of two of the three competitions with the Cheltenham Festival looming.

We do not have a major sponsor. With poor recent performances will we get one? Hospitality bookings are fine and a Cheltenham with good cricket results will cheer everyone up, but will it be just papering over the cracks?

Many readers go to Worcestershire's New Road ground to watch cricket and how well they are being rewarded. Successful in both competitions, Worcestershire are a glowing example to Gloucestershire.

Their young players have “trained on” to use a horse racing phrase. Good luck to director of cricket Steve Rhodes and his charges. They are showing us, and many others just what can be done.

There is much more to cricket in the county than just the county team, of course, and in front of me is a report of our U11s thrashing Oxfordshire. The Gloucestershire team was truly county-wide, containing players from as far afield as Dumbleton, Aston Ingham, Great Rissington, Bourton Vale and Charlton Kings.

I have left the best bit to last. I quote: “This brought Woody Walker (Cirencester) to the crease and he wasted no time knocking off the rest of the runs.”

Woody hit the highest score of the game scoring 27 off 27 balls. This was a fine victory for a side so splendidly representative of our whole county. The star player coming from Ciren was the welcome icing on a delicious cake. Well done, Woody Walker.

The news from Forest Green is encouraging Mark Cooper has made two signings. Defenders Callum Evans and Lee Collins have fine footballing backgrounds and in the words of the manager “fit the profile.”

The other good news is that season tickets are now on sale at last year’s prices.

They became available on my wedding anniversary and I therefore promptly reserved one for Mrs Light. She tells me she has never had a better anniversary present.

Both of us are looking forward to the new soccer season. If only our county cricket team were better.