Unusually I was not there

 Posted by Tony Hutton

My next blog was originally to concern my first ever first class match, which was a Test Match between England and South Africa at Headingley way back in the mists of time of 1947. However that will have to wait as during my research, on the subject of Len Hutton, I was side tracked, as so often happens, by a team picture of Yorkshire taken in 1949 quite obviously at Chesterfield. 

Several things drew my attention to this picture. For a start eight of the twelve players had played or would play for England. The back row contains two youngsters who had started their first class careers only a few weeks earlier and would both go on to greater things - Brian Close and Frank Lowson. Indeed Frank Lowson would become a business colleague and good friend of mine in later years. More of that later. One unusual participant was Frank McHugh, a very fast opening bowler, who is not looking at the camera but has perhaps been distracted by a passing female.

McHugh had come into the side because of an injury to Ron Aspinall and only played three games for Yorkshire. He later moved to Gloucestershire, where he had a successful career as an opening bowler, but his batting broke all records of a very different kind. Wikipedia reports that his career batting was consistently inept with an average of 2.63. In fact 66 of his 111 first class innings were scoreless and he was dismissed 38 times for a duck. In fact he only reached double figures four times.

So of course I was then tempted to download the full scorecard of the game at Chesterfield, despite of course not being present at the time. This proved to be of even greater interest as the game was obviously played on a typical green top wicket of the kind made so well known by Derbyshire's famous opening bowling pair of Jackson and Gladwin. Yorkshire were obviously aware of this and left out England left arm spinner Johnny Wardle from their twelve.

Yorkshire having won the toss started badly when Hutton was dismissed by the veteran Bill Copson for a duck. However Frank Lowson played the highest innings of the match in scoring 64 out of an all out total of 194 which took 101 overs. Copson and Gladwin took three wickets each and Jackson two. When Derbyshire batted they were soon 11-4 when Coxon and McHugh took two wickets each. Only Charlie Elliot, later to become a Test umpire, made any sort of score with 39 and the home side were all out for just 69. Coxon 4-21, spinner Ellis Robinson 3-12, McHugh 2-16 and Close 1-13. The 18 year old Close of course went on not only to complete the double of a thousand runs and one hundred wickets but to play for England in this his first season.

Yorkshire also struggled in their second innings and were soon 12-3. This time Hutton managed 14 and Watson top scored with 30. With the wicket showing no signs of improvement Yorkshire then declared on 79-7 leaving Derbyshire requiring just over 200 to win. Copson, Gladwin and Jackson again shared all the wickets. Derbyshire of course had no chance of reaching the target and indeed were 40-7 thanks to Alex Coxon's opening burst which brought him final figures of 6-36. After some token resistance from the tail Derbyshire were all out for 90 and Yorkshire had won by 114 runs.

Frank Lowson with the other Hutton.

To return briefly to my friendship with Frank Lowson, many years later he did play a few games for our office side in evening league cricket and had still not lost his touch, sweetly timing the ball through the covers to rebound from the boundary wall with no effort whatsoever. Even so one of my few achievements as a cricketer came when I captained a former England opener and did not require him to bat. He said 'put me in at number five or six' and promptly went to sleep on the dressing room table. However we managed to score 120-2 in our twenty overs and he was not required on that occasion.