Attending three very different meetings of cricket enthusiasts during a period of just four days last week has set the scene very nicely prior to the start of the season. Despite all that is going on in the world of cricket, which seems to have led to a certain Mr Harrison becoming the target for much unfavourable comment and has led to such luminaries as Geoffrey Boycott and Robin Marler almost quoting Private Fraser of 'Dad's Army' to suggest that we are all doomed, there is still an air of optimism in the land.
The first function I attended was the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians AGM at Derbys county ground, much changed in recent times. The star turn here was no less than M.J.K. Smith, who has been president for the last ten years. Despite advancing years, which has meant him standing down, he is still as bright as a button with a phenomenal memory of players and matches from long ago. He vividly recalled his first county appearance, for Leicestershire against Northants when he achieved the memorable dismissal of 'caught Fiddling bowled Nutter 0'. His one plea to the cricket administrators of today was to encourage more spin bowlers, a feeling obviously shared by the audience. For a start he insisted we should stop bringing in the boundaries in all forms of one day cricket as this does not help encourage spinners at all.
Despite the common problems of microphones which don't work and speakers who don't know how to use them when they do, the meeting produced a lot of enthusiasm for the game as we know it, if not the direction in which we all seem to be heading.
One notable speaker was Jim Hindson, once a Notts player, who now runs the amazing website Cricket Archive. He was there to justify the decision to make this a pay site, but I for one do not quibble with this. The amount of data available is unbelievable and well worth every penny of the modest subscription in my opinion.
The following day brought together a slightly smaller audience in members of the Yorkshire County Cricket Club Supporters Association at Headingley in the Long Room, which had hosted the Yorkshire A.G.M. the day before. Not much mention of the financial problems which had been aired on that occasion, but a most entertaining talk by Ralph Middlebrook on the cricketers of Pudsey, of which there are quite a few.
Ralph Middlebrook
These of course include three very great batsmen in John Tunnicliffe, Herbert Sutcliffe and Sir Leonard Hutton, but there are many others of slightly lesser abilities all with interesting stories as Ralph went through an A-Z of them all. The two major clubs in Pudsey are Pudsey St. Lawrence and Pudsey Congs (very much Ralph's own club) and as was to be expected he did tend to favour his own club's players over their local rivals. This was cricketing nostalgia at it's best. Another on the long list was Sir Leonard's son Richard, who will soon be installed as Yorkshire President in succession to the sadly missed John Hampshire.
Finally on Tuesday night we had the spring dinner of the Northern Cricket Society at Sandmoor Golf Club, Leeds. The guest of honour here was none other that Pat 'Percy' Pocock, former Surrey and England off spin bowler. The evening's menu paid tribute by re-printing the Sussex second innings scorecard in the game against Surrey at Eastbourne in August 1972 when Pocock set no less than three world records.
Pat Pocock
His amazing achievement on that day included five wickets in six balls, six wickets in nine balls and seven wickets in eleven balls as Sussex collapsed from 187-1 to 202 all out. Like M.J.K. Smith before him, he was apalled at the lack of spin bowlers in county cricket today, but felt that the generation gap between spinners of his age and those of today means that there are very few practicioners like him, who played much more matches and bowled far more overs, around now to teach the art of spin bowling.
After that serious bit 'Percy' told many tales of the happy times he had as both a Test and county player at a time when the game was perhaps more enjoyable and less serious than today. He obviously enjoyed his battles with Yorkshire, full of admiration for Close for his bravery, Trueman for his outspokeness and Illingworth as a tactical captain. One story I had not heard before concerned the Bedser twins in Australia, when Alec was in the Test team and Eric covering the tour for the Evening Standard.
England were batting so Alec went round the corner for a haircut at a local barber's shop. Later in the day Eric saw this and asked his brother where the barber's was and off he went too. Imagine the man's incredulity when the identical twin walked in and asked for a haircut -'blimey mate your hair doesn't half grow quick'.
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