The county of Gloucestershire has produced many fine cricketers of note over a long period of time, but sad to say they have never yet won the county championship. One of their most successful periods came in the 1970s soon after this team picture was taken. One of the main reasons for this was the advent of South African all rounder Mike Procter, still just 21 years old in 1968. Captain for just this one season was double international Arthur Milton, who played soccer for Arsenal and England. Sadly he never earned the big money of today's super stars and after retirement became a postman in Bristol.
Starting at the left of the back row is Mike Bissex, an all rounder who batted right handed but bowled slow left arm. He stayed with the county from 1961 to 1972 without really hitting the heights, but was a good team man who scored 6,500 runs and took 237 wicket in over 200 first class games.
Next to him is one of many long serving Gloucester professionals, the well know wicket keeper and Test Match umpire Barry Meyer. He played for the county from 1957-1971 taking over 700 catches and over 100 stumpings. He was also an accomplished soccer player, mainly with Bristol Rovers for whom he scored a memorable goal in a 4-0 F.A. Cup win over Manchester United in 1956,
David Shepherd became even better known as an umpire in Test cricket throughout the world than he was as a cricketer. However, although not starting till he was 25 he too had a long playing career as a middle order batsman from 1965-79. He scored over 10,000 runs, including 12 centuries. He was a very popular man wherever cricket was played around the world.
Mike Procter sadly only played in seven Test matches before South Africa were banned from international cricket due to apartheid. In other times he would have become one of the great all rounders of Test cricket with his attacking batting and extremely rapid fast bowling. His unusual action with a chest on delivery, appearing to bowl off the wrong foot, upset many batsmen over the years and he had the unusual distinction of two all lbw hat tricks. He played for Gloucestershire from 1965-1981 and with equal success for Natal during the English winters from 1965 to 1989. He became an international referee after retirement, not without controversy on occasions.
Next to Procter is the burly figure of David Green, an extremely able opening batsman who started his first class career with Oxford University and with Lancashire, where he played from 1959-1967. He then joined Gloucester for a successful period of six years, during which he unusually scored 2000 runs in a season without making a century. He than became a journalist writing on cricket and rugby union for the Daily Telegraph.
Last man on the back row is local born off spinner David Allen, another long servant of the club from 1953 to 1972. He played for some time with two other off spinners in the team in John Mortimore and Bomber Wells and made 39 Test appearances for England, where he often performed quite well with the bat.
On the left of the front row is opening bat Ron Nicholls, yet another long serving performer who made over 23,000 runs for the county, including 18 hundreds. With David Young he made the county's highest ever partnership of 395 against Oxford University in 1962, making his highest career score of 217 in the process.
John Mortimore's off spinning career with Gloucester stretched from 1950 to 1975. He was captain from 1965-1967 and played in just nine Tests for England, often overshadowed by team mate David Allen. He was no doubt the better batsman of the two and did the double of a thousand runs and a hundred wickets in a season on three occasions in 1959, 1963 and 1964.
Arthur Milton, the double international, was handed the captaincy at the age of 39 after making over 2000 runs, with seven centuries in 1967. However after that one season he returned to the ranks and carried on playing until 1974, having started way back in 1948. He played just six Tests in 1958 and 1959 and emulated the feat of W.G. Grace by scoring a century on debut. He had joined Arsenal aged 17 in 1945, but his debut for them did not come until 1951, after National Service. His one cap came against Austria in 1951 before winning league championship honours and then briefly joining Bristol City before concentrating on his cricket.
David Smith and Tony Brown the final two players on the front row had parallel careers from the 1950s to the 1970s. They both opened the bowling together for many years and were real stalwarts of the team. Smith did make five Test appearances on a tour of Indian in 1961/62 when the leading fast bowlers did not make the trip. His best season was 1960 when he took 143 wickets.
Tony Brown, who sadly died in May of this year, had captained the team for a while from 1969-1976, but perhaps became better known as an administrator after retirement when he was secretary of Gloucester and then Somerset, during their period of turmoil, before joining the ECB. He was then later both Chairman and President of Gloucestershire.
No comments:
Post a Comment