A Norfolk legend

posted by John Winn

Think of Norfolk cricket and most people will recall the Edrich family particularly England pre and post second World War batsman Bill of that ilk. It is not however, a member of that family who is the subject of today's posting but one Michael Falcon, who played for the county from 1906 and 1946 and then served as its chairman and later president.

In previous postings I have written about cricketers whose talents extended beyond the 'best loved game' to other sports and even into public life. One such subject was the South African test player Clive van Ryneveld who found time to play Rugby Union for England (sic) and was a prominent anti apartheid politician in the 1960s. More recently I described the life of Australian Reg Bettinger who played county cricket for Middlesex, was amateur golf champion of his native country and went on to be a distinguished medical practitioner.

Michael Falcoln's life outside cricket was sufficiently successful that he could attach the initials LLB, MP and JP to his name. He has been the subject of one of the ACS lives in cricket series (author Stephen Musk) which sadly I have not read. I first came across Falcon's deeds in a book by Mike Davage 'Knights in Whites, Major Men', a who's who of Norfolk CCC from 1876 to 2011 in which the author used his skills as historian and genealogist in interviewing almost every living player and tracing their families.

Falcoln died in 1976 and in the following year's Wisden his obituary follows that of Gloucestershire stalwart and holder of one test cap, George Emmett. In addition to his one test appearance against Australia in 1948 when he was not alone in finding the pace of Lindwall a bit much, Emmett scored over 22000 runs for Gloucestershire. His Ashes appearance may best be  remembered by some as the match for which Hutton was dropped. Sanity was restored when Leonard was recalled for the next match and responded with scores of 81 and 57. In spite of his relatively illustrious career Wisden's final word on Emmett is afforded only half the space given to Falcon, a man whose fist class career was restricted to 89 matches, mainly for Cambridge University and the Gentlemen.

If Falcon could be said to have had one shining hour then it was probably in 1921 when he was part of MacLaren's XI that overcame in remarkable circumstances Armstrong's Australians at Eastbourne, their first of only two defeats on that tour. Falcon took 6 for 67 in the first innings. In his excellent account of this game Ronald Mason describes Falcon as an 'admirable pace bowler with fine command of swing'. 'Sixfors' seem to have been his speciality for he took 6 for 58 against the Players in 1913,  6 for 41 for the Gentlemen against the Australian Forces in 1919 and in 1926 went one better with 7 for 42 for the Minor Counties* against the Australians in their opening match of the 1926 tour.

 

Falcon played almost 250 games for Norfolk, hitting 21 centuries and finishing with just short of 700 wickets. In his last season (1946) when aged 58, he topped the batting averages. A career best of 205 was made against Hertfordshire in 1920. Born at Horstead Hall, the above picture of which suggests a privileged upbringing, his list of clubs reinforces the idea of the amateur gentleman, Harrow School, Cambridge University, Free Foresters, Harrow Wanderers, Leveson Gower's XI and I Zingari were generally not for 'horny handed sons of toil'. Falcon died suddenly aged 87 at his home in the Cathedral Close in Norfolk, a legend indeed.

* Some authorites describe this match as being Martineau's XI v the tourists. This mistake probably arises because it was played on Martineau's private ground.