Have recently caught up with a little known, but remarkably entertaining, cricket book from my collection. It was compiled by someone I had never heard of, either before or since the book was published in the year 2000. Chris Westcott's 'Class of '59' is based on a set of 48 cricketers cards issued in 1959 by a chewing gum company. He caught up with them all, or their nearest and dearest if they had passed away, and got them to re-live their cricketing careers with special mention of their most memorable match. The scorecards of these memorable games are all shown in full. The period covered is described as the Golden Age of County Cricket, which for me as a teenager it certainly was.
As well as the original card pictures there is a full set of up to date pictures of the players taken some forty years on. As you will see from the front cover the players run from Trevor Bailey through to Wilfred Wooller and all of them could be said to have had successfull county careers, some of them even at Test level. It took me only a little time to run through the list of players and to work out that I had seen all but one of them play. The one who got away was J.F. Pretlove of Cambridge University and Kent.
All of them have fascinating stories to tell from Frank Tyson's rejection by his native Lancashire in 1951 which read - 'Dear Tyson, there will be no opportunity for you this season', which is why he ended up with Northamptonshire. Roy Tattersall, a very consistent off spinner for Lancashire and England, also felt hard done to by his native county. He and colleague Malcolm Hilton were awarded a joint benefit match which attracted a huge Roses Match crowd to Old Trafford. Tattersall was 12th man and Hilton was playing for the second team at Scarborough. Tattersall was sacked at the end of that season in 1960 when he thought he had at least three more years in him.
Robin Marlar of Sussex was very brief in his career summary, hardly mentioning his county career and picking the Varsity match of 1953 as his most memorable game, when he took twelve wickets in the match including 7-49 in the second innings. One of the most lengthy, and fascinating, contributions is from Raymond Illingworth on his time with Yorkshire, Leicestershire and England. His comment on Brian Close perhaps lends credence to the belief that Illingworth was the power behind the throne during those great years of the 1960s. Understandably his greatest match was England's victory in Sydney in 1971 when England under his captaincy won the Ashes.
However there are equalling captivating sessions with the long serving county professionals like Derek Shackleton of Hampshire, Maurice Hallam of Leicestershire, Don Shepherd of Glamorgan and Brian Taylor of Essex. All have interesting tales to tell, none more so than that of Jack Robertson of Middlesex whose story was told my his widow. I well remember hearing the cricket scores on the day Robertson made an unbelievable 331 not out in a day at Worcester in 1949. Even then he could not make the England team, except very rarely, due to the form of the formidable partnership of Hutton and Washbrook.
Great memories abound. This is a truly wonderful cricket book which I do not think ever got the publicity and praise it deserves.
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