Together they helped lay the foundations for Sussex's first Championship in their 164-year history.

Now they hardly have a decent word to say about each other.

Tony Pigott and Dave Gilbert were the central figures in a dramatic power struggle behind the scenes at the County Ground.

A new book published tomorrow unveils a tale of alleged incompetence and betrayal, overshadowed until now by last summer's long-awaited title triumph.

The Longest Journey, co-written by The Argus cricket correspondent Bruce Talbot and The Guardian's Paul Weaver, exposes the collapse of Pigott and Gilbert's close working relationship and with it their friendship.

The paths of Pigott, an Old Harrovian, and Gilbert, a straight-talking Australian, first crossed in 1996 at Surrey.

Pigott was seeing out his playing days at The Oval after a distinguished 18-year-career as a fast bowler for Sussex.

He became second XI coach under Gilbert, who had been recruited as Surrey's cricket manager from the Australian Cricket Academy.

Nobody could have foreseen the extraordinary chain of events which brought them together again at Sussex the following year.

Pigott quit his £30,000 a year post to plot, with the county's former captain Robin Marlar, the fall of a committee under Alan Caffyn widely regarded as outdated and out-of-touch with the membership.

Revolution achieved, Marlar became chairman and Pigott chief executive.

In October 1997, Pigott turned to Gilbert to help restructure the club, appointing him deputy chief executive and director of cricket.

Alarm bells soon rang. An £83,000 loss in 1997 more than doubled within a year to £193,000.

A local TV advertising campaign, designed to attract new members, and the re-branding of the squash club at the County Ground into Willows restaurant and bar backfired badly.

To make matters worse for Pigott, Marlar handed over the role of chairman to Don Trangmar, a hard-nosed businessman with 15 years experience on the board of Marks and Spencer.

By 1998, with the debts continuing to spiral out of control, Gilbert had cut back his involvement on the cricket side of operations.

He became general manager, while Pigott was asked to turn his attention to external matters. It was the beginning of the end.

Gilbert said: "You can't help but like Tony, he's a lovable rogue. But his spending was irrational and largely unaccountable and I was getting increasingly fed up clearing up the wreckage.

"It was very unfair on Tony to give him a job for which he was entirely unsuited.

"He was always popular with the members and the committee because he always wore his heart on his sleeve as a player, giving absolutely everything, and then he was the catalyst for change when the club changed direction. But he was simply not up to the job."

In September 1999, shortly after Sussex had won the second division of the National League, Pigott left for "personal reasons".

Trangmar had wanted Gilbert more heavily involved in the day-to-day running of the club for months.

Changing Gilbert's job title failed to end confusion over areas of responsibility and there was no longer room for both the Australian and the Old Harrovian.

Gilbert said: "Whether watching the team at home or away, as soon as I met up with the opposition club's hierarchy, someone would button-hole me and ask exactly what was the difference between Tony's and my roles at Sussex.

"It was all a bit embarrassing. The club's financial position was still pretty precarious. We just seemed to be on a course that had no strategy.

"I genuinely feared that because of the spending, the club would go bankrupt and I was never going to be part of that. My credibility and reputation are very important to me.

"In those last few weeks before he left, Tony and I hardly spoke. Our relationship had deteriorated quite badly.

"That was a shame because we had been good friends and he was, after all, the person who created the position and brought me to the club."

Gilbert left Sussex himself in July 2001 to become chief executive of the New South Wales Cricket Association.

The wounds are still raw for Pigott, who now runs the New Inn at Hurstpierpoint.

"From the moment I appointed him, David told me he didn't want the job of chief executive, but as time wore on I felt he was undermining me," Pigott said.

"I think David felt guilty about what happened. Every time I came to the ground after that he would run a mile.

"Everything I did was for the good of Sussex cricket, but I'm not sure David did."

The Longest Journey, published by Sutton Publishing, will be available from tomorrow at Sussex CCC and in all book shops from next week.