St George’s Cricket Club chairman Lewis Foggo has taken the blame for Clay Smith’s Bermuda Cricket Board (BCB) presidential snub.The East Enders had come under fire for not voting for Smith who they had nominated to face off with Allen Richardson, Lloyd Fray and Ed Bailey for the Board’s top elected post at last month’s BCB annual general meeting.Smith later said he felt betrayed by a club he had given so much to over the years.Club chairman Foggo took full responsibility for the snub but would not reveal who had actually nominated the former national team skipper.“There has been a lot of negative talk with regards to how St George’s dealt with this situation and I want to take all responsibility,” he told The Royal Gazette.“The executive body of my club had no idea about how we were voting and I can go as far as to say that my president (Neil Paynter) wasn’t aware Clay had been nominated because I mentioned it to him after the fact.“I was at a meeting at St George’s and after the meeting I sat off with Clay and our secretary (Raoul Ming) and he told us that he would like for us to nominate him. He wasn’t given a definite but he was told to let us know who was seconding him there and then before we went anywhere with it. The next I heard the nomination was in and I called my president to come to find how he was nominated because I wasn’t looking to vote for him and my president didn’t even know he was nominated.”Foggo went as far as to say that he never intended to nominate Smith, who resigned as St George’s coach last September, in the first place.“Not taking anything away from Clay as a cricketer because I hold him in high regards, but I basically wasn’t looking to nominate him,” he added. “I have always loved him as a cricketer, he has given me fond memories as a cricketer and I consider him as a friend also.“But Clay sent a letter at the end of September stating that he needed a break from playing and coaching cricket to focus on his family, and that played a major part in my decision not to nominate him.”Even though Foggo now questions whether his club’s decision not to back their own man was the right one, he does take consolation in the fact that Smith failed to receive a single vote from other BCB affilliates, something he claimed spoke volumes.“I don’t think it’s a good thing for a club to nominate someone and then don’t vote for them,” Foggo said. “But in hindsight he now knows that it wasn’t only St George’s that didn’t think he was ready but all of Bermuda.“At least he saw that Bermuda wasn’t ready for him to be BCB president and had we not nominated him it would’ve been like St George’s just doesn’t have anything for Clay, which isn’t the case.“I have nothing personal against Clay . . . it just wasn’t his time to be president and I’m sure one day he will make a good president because I know he has a lot of passion when it comes to cricket.”After being hung out to dry by his own club, Smith struggled to come to grips with a situation that left him disappointed and besumed.“To see them not even vote for me has left me totally speechless,” he lamented. “To be quite honest it’s worst than rubbing salt in the wound when you talk about a club that you basically have given the majority of your life to in a sporting aspect.”