Zooming towards next year

 Posted by Tony Hutton

One of the new developments for cricket followers during the covid pandemic has been the proliferation of Zoom sites on the internet which has enabled cricket societies and other organisations to continue with meetings during the winter months. I wrote about my first  Zoom meeting with Chris O'Brien talking about his new book on Neville Cardus back in October. Since then both Brian Sanderson and I have joined in the Sporting Reminiscence sessions hosted by the Yorkshire Cricket Foundation along with a group of other local cricket enthusiasts. There are currently two  weekly cricket sessions each Tuesday morning and Thursday afternoon with some lively debate, personal reminiscences and quiz questions which get everyone involved. There is also a Rugby League session each Friday.

Both the Northern Cricket Society and the Wombwell Cricket Lovers have introduced regular meetings, as is the norm in the winter months, with a good collection of speakers who have been able to entertain members of both Societies able jointly to access the Zoom sessions. Some of the personalities who have been involved so far include Derek Pringle, former Essex & England player and cricket journalist, Martyn Moxon, director of cricket at Yorkshire, Jonathon Doidge, BBC Radio Leeds cricket correspondent and last night Richard Illingworth, former Worcester and England player now an elite umpire.

Derek Pringle used a series of his own photographs from his playing days to illustrate his stories from his days in county and Test cricket with memories of some of the famous names from that generation. Graham Gooch and Keith Fletcher, two of the great names of Essex cricket were both well featured. Martyn Moxon's session with the Wombwell Cricket Lovers was particularly poignant in view of the recent death of Martyn's mother who was a regular supporter of the Wombwell society. He spoke about the difficulties encountered by Yorkshire last season from both an administrative and playing point of view and one could only sympathise with the problems he had to overcome.

He was also able to reminisce about his own playing career and mentioned his debut century for Yorkshire, which I was there to see at Headingley in 1981, and how he was robbed of a test century by the umpire signalling leg byes when he definitely hit the ball and was out for 99 against New Zealand. The picture below shows another of his great innings that I saw when adding 351 for the first wicket with Geoffrey Boycott at Worcester in 1985.

Boycott and Moxon at Worcester in 1985

Jonathon Doidge, whose radio commentaries on Yorkshire last season were also used for the live streaming TV pictures we were able to watch when of course no spectators were allowed, also gave his version of county cricket and the difficulties overcome by all involved behind the scenes. He has a great knowledge covering many sports and the Chairman of the meeting had to intervene to keep some of the questions back to a cricketing theme.

Last night's visit to the home of Richard Illingworth in Worcester also proved highly entertaining. Starting as he did in the Bradford League and still very much a Yorkshireman, he took us through his successful career with Worcestershire as a slow left arm bowler and a regular nightwatchman who was a better batsman than many thought. He also played for England, mainly in one day internationals including a World Cup Final. Since his playing days he has become an elite international umpire and his stories of the problems facing umpires around the world were much appreciated by the audience.

In addition to all this we did also manage to tune in to a Durham county cricket members' forum a few weeks ago when a panel of four which included Tim Bostock, Chief Executive, Marcus North, Director of Cricket, James Franklin, Head Coach and Chris Rushworth, the club's leading bowler were all given their chance to answer questions on last season and their hopes for next season. The meeting was extremely positive and I was greatly impressed with Tim Bostock who obviously seems to be leading the club in the right direction. Full marks all round for Zoom!