Stephenson was very much one of the professionals and even as captain had little time for the stuffier county cricket element. There were run-ins with the county establishment. Cricket writer David Foot in an obituary of Stephenson reported "one corrosive exchange with the county chairman, Bunty Longrigg". Foot reports Stephenson as saying: "It was my fifth year in charge and we'd got to the Bath Festival. The chairman approached me and asked me bluntly who I thought we should leave out to make way for an amateur or two. I bristled and told him that if he had plans to make changes, he had better skipper the county himself."