Will you sign please?

posted by John Winn

My career as an autograph collector was short but stellar for over the course of a couple of years in the fifties I collected the cream of England's cricketers and some Australian and South African test players. Scarborough at Festival time was my hunting ground and in my desk drawer I still keep the treasured green covered book in which the great names are to be found.

Above are six of the 1956 Australian tourists who played TN Pearce's XI at North Marine Road on the 5th, 6th and 7th of September in what was the last first class match of their tour. If memory serves tourists came from their hotel in taxis which dropped them close to the dressing rooms while English based players parked opposite the main entrance to the ground in a car park which became a pub and is now a block of flats. The six on this page are Ken 'Slasher' Mackay ( bottom right and upside down). To his left is Ian Craig, on his second tour but still only twenty one and a future captain, and above and at 90 degrees keeper Len Maddocks. Above Maddocks is skipper Ian Johnson and to his right Alan Davidson and senior keeper Gil Langley, the only one of the six not to play in this match but who had the honour of being one of Wisden's five cricketers of the year.

With all due respect to the six players who signed on the left hand page it is the two who wrote their signatures on the opposite page who are the gems from that tour. Top is Keith Miller (trust me) and below and more legible Richie Benaud, two of the greatest cricketers of my lifetime and in Benaud's case high on most people's lists of great commentators. While I am a little uncertain as to precisely where I collected Slasher and the other five, but probably at close of play when they sought refuge in their taxis, I recall very clearly where I picked up Messrs Miller and Benaud for it was when they were leaving The Royal Hotel to cross the road to a reception at The Grand. When Keith Miller appeared I was some what in awe of this brilliant cricketer but a firm shove between my shoulder blades from my mother sent me forward and to my delight he signed. Confidence boosted I got Richie Benaud's signature as well which meant my collection included almost half of the seventeen strong party. 

Few readers will need reminding that this was Laker's summer and that the Australians felt they had been 'stitched up' on the spinning wickets at Headingley and Old Trafford. The test series had finished on August 28th at The Oval but the tourists played a further three class matches after that  at Lord's, Hastings and Scarborough before travelling to Jesmond to play Minor Counties, Hamilton Crescent Glasgow to play the first of two matches against Scotland, the second of which was Mannofield Park Aberdeen which finished on September 15th thus ending a tour which had begun at Arundel on April 28th. I wonder how many times in those almost five months they were asked, 'Will you sign please?