Warwickshire and Kent go back a long way in county cricket. Two of the long-term pillars of the English game, they have a lot of shared history – and not all of it happy.

Go back 99 years to 1911 when Warwickshire lifted the championship crown for the first time. When Frank Foster’s collection of ageing mavericks won their final fixture at Northampton to clinch top spot, 200 miles to the south-east, much chuntering began.

Warwickshire had pipped Kent for the title by virtue of an eclectic points system and Kent, having played – and won – more matches felt, with some justification, that they deserved to finish top. The sense of injustice lingered for years.

Then there was the famous bowl-out in 1994. Kent arrived in Birmingham for a Benson and Hedges Cup quarter-final on a wet May day.

After Warwickshire controversially chose not to deploy the Brumbrella, a bowlout in the indoor school was ordered. Kent lost it – and lodged a formal complaint with the Test and County Cricket Board.

Some friction there, then. But there are also more positive connections between Kent and Warwickshire, not least Bob Woolmer and John Inverarity, the last two coaches to bring the county championship title to Edgbaston.

And some fascinating light has been shed on these two men by a book published this summer, Trophies and Tribulations – Forty Years of Kent Cricket, by Clive Ellis and Mark Pennell.

Woolmer’s place in the pantheon of all-time great cricket coaches is secure but while his later years in international cricket, and his second spell with Warwickshire, were not entirely successful or pleasant, his achievements with the Bears, peaking with the domestic treble in 1994, in the mid-1990s remain unique.

And when, in 2002, Woolmer left Edgbaston for the last time, in came Inverarity.

A changing of the guard between two men who shared a lifelong love of and commitment to cricket yet, as men, made chalk and cheese appear positively identical substances.

Woolmer, warm, big-hearted and extrovert, never tired of talking cricket with colleagues, supporters and journalists alike.

Inverarity was erudite and not without charm but much more insular. Capable of drawing great loyalty and commitment from those close to him, just as Woolmer did, the Australian was much less comfortable with the public and in the public eye.

Trophies and Tribulations – Forty Years of Kent Cricket contains intriguing snippets about both men.

Of Inverarity’s thirst for innovation, for example, and his stream of ideas, some of which went down better than others with the players.

“During the warm-ups one day,” recalls Kent and England batsman Robert Key, “he was getting us to practise how we walked out to bat. He got us doing this jaunty stride; I can only describe it as a ‘monkey walk’. I felt a complete tit doing it but he had so many good ideas to offer that you didn’t mind the occasional stupid thing.”

The book also contains plenty of tributes to Woolmer’s coaching skills – “Bob was a brilliant coach,” said another former Kent and England man Chris Cowdrey. “He probably had more coaching knowledge than anyone I’ve ever met.” – but also details the run-ins with the establishment which were never far below the surface of Woolmer’s colourful life.

In his final years at Edgbaston, the director of cricket fell out bitterly with MJK Smith. At Canterbury he had locked horns with that most intransigent scion of all things ‘old guard’ EW Swanton.

In August 1987, Ellis and Pennell report, a Kent committee meeting heard that: “EW Swanton said he thought that Woolmer was the worst offender against dress regulations when he wore shorts. The captain replied that Woolmer felt he was entitled to wear shorts in the nets on hot days.”

Never mind greatness as a cricket coach. Shorts were jolly bad form!

* “Trophies and Tribulations – Forty Years of Kent Cricket” is published by Greenwich Publishing, priced £16.99.