Alan Butcher - one Test wonder.

Posted by Tony Hutton

The Northern Cricket Society welcomed Alan Butcher as their speaker at Headingley last night.
The former Surrey and Glamorgan batsman is in the middle of a tour of Yorkshire Cricket Societies and said he had never eaten so many fish and chip suppers in his life. He may well be in for even more as he visits Hull tonight to speak to the East Riding Cricket Society.

                                                             Alan Butcher


Alan, possibly better known as the father of England Test player and Sky Sports pundit Mark Butcher, can be proud of his family's cricketing achievements. His brother Ian played first class cricket for Gloucester and Leicester and another brother Martin played just one match for Surrey.  As  well as Mark, with Surrey and England, his other son Gary also played for Glamorgan and Surrey. In addition his daughter has also played in women's county cricket for Devon.

So quite a family tradition of which Alan is justifiably proud. He talked very little about his own achievements which were quite considerable as a very consistent left hand opening bat, who captained both his counties. He was most unlucky to become a member of the 'one Test wonder' club, his only appearance coming as partner to Geoffrey Boycott against India in 1979. He was known as a good player of fast bowling and told many stories of the fearsome bowlers he came across during his time in county cricket. It appears he had been pencilled in for an England tour of the West Indies and told the story of how the then chairman of selectors didn't recognise Roland Butcher of Middlesex, who did make the trip, saying that wasn't the Butcher he had picked!

He mentioned the fine opening partnership he developed with Graham Clinton, who came from Kent in 1979, but possibly not wanting to upset his Yorkshire audience failed to mention their opening partnership of 277 against Yorkshire at the Oval in 1984, which resulted in an innings victory for Surrey. He spoke with great affection of his Surrey team mates of the 1980s, many of whom appear on the team picture shown below. One of the highlights being Pat Pocock's spell of bowling against Sussex at Eastbourne.

Alan retired from cricket after three years at Glamorgan in 1992 and then went into coaching with both Essex and Surrey. Things took a new turn in 2010 when he was offered the position of head coach of the Zimbabwe national cricket team, a challenging job if there ever was one. However despite all the problems, both on and off the field, he was able to rejuvenate the Zimbabwe side and produced results which ended a long period of struggle for them.

Again he did not say a lot about Zimbabwe, but was obviously very fond of the country and their people. He did not really promote his book 'The Good Murungu?'  which he wrote on his experiences in the country and which no doubt will be an excellent read. Apparently murungu means white man, and he took being called a good white man as a compliment.

Being of the same generation of much of his audience he shared their feelings about the current state of the English game and the problems which seem to be surrounding the ECB's future plans. Indeed his love of the game and it's traditions shone through and provided an excellent evening's entertainment.