In my last posting I listed the names of the eleven men who opened the batting for Lancashire with Geoff Pullar and posed a quiz testing your knowledge of a diverse group a little further. It's time to swop your answers with the person next to you and see how well you did.
The three who played for England were Bob Barber, Alan Wharton (a one cap wonder), and Barry Wood.
Graham Atkinson was born in Lofthouse (near Wakefield) but joined Somerset aged 16 and was there 12 years before coming back north but to the west of the Pennines where he played his first match for Lancs against Warwickshire in April 1967. He stayed at Old Trafford until the end of the 1969 season.
Barry Wood played for Yorkshire before Lancashire and later for Derbyshire and therefore is one of the six who played for other counties along with Atkinson, Wharton (Leicestershire), Brian Booth (also Leics) David Green (Gloucs) and Bob Barber who left Old Trafford for Edgbaston.
Alan Bolton, Wharton and Jack Dyson are the three who have died and it was David Green who played rugby for Sale and whose memoirs are 'A handful of confetti'. Which leaves Jack Dyson as the answer to the remaining two questions for he scored for Manchester City against Birmingham in the 56 FA Cup Final in their 3-1 win, a result rather overshadowed by the injury to Bert Trautmann. Dyson, was something of a free spirit for he was sacked by Lancashire in 1961 for 'insubordination and insolence to the captain', the amateur Barber. After a gap of two years he returned for two more seasons under the captaincy of the Australian Ken Grieves. He played one match for Staffordshire.
By the time Dyson died in his home town of Oldham in 2000 he hard fallen on hard times and an appeal had to be made for his relatives to come forward. A man who lived for the moment, he was married to a beauty queen, had come to a sad end. But as that end came near he could look back on his Wembley goal and amongst his many cricketing memories two remarkable championship games. More of which next time.
Jack Dyson 1934-2000
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