A Day at Dudley 1954 and the Black Country Shakespeare.

 Posted by Tony Hutton

A recent visit to my cricket archives came up with the following item, which pre-dates the word 'blog' by many years but was probably my first attempt at something of this nature. The Black Country town of Dudley was in the immediate post war years an island of Worcestershire totally surrounded by Staffordshire and was a regular venue for the county cricket club for many years. More recently my researches led to the discovery of this painting by a local man, Percy Shakespeare, entitled the Tea Interval and sets the scene at the Dudley ground in pre-war days.

A Day at Dudley - 12th June, 1954

The County Ground Dudley, to which Worcestershire make two or three weary journeys each season, is not one of the county's many attractive grounds and as usual the weather was in keeping with the surroundings.

When we reached the ground at eleven it was almost deserted, the sky was an unwelcome black and a cold wind blew over the ground from the murky backgound of factories, chimneys and cooling towers - the Black Country.

After a walk round to keep warm, we were given something to watch by Glamorgan's very keen skipper, Wilf Wooller, who with Willie Jones, Gilbert Parkhouse and young Ken Lewis, was keeping up the county's excellent standard by practicing slip fielding. Then the Worcester coach drew up and captain Ronnie Bird appeared clad appropriately in a duffle coat for a word with Wooller and a look at the wicket.

Jenkins, pipe in mouth, twisted his hand in threatening fashion, suggesting a googly, to Parkhouse, who tried a bit of batting practice and was well caught by one of our number off Jones, whose remarkable analysis at Leicester yesterday was 6-6-0-1. Parkhouse refused to leave the crease and cracked two fours through the covers to get his own back, the ball pursued by the inevitable small boy. After only a few balls from Jones, Wooller won the toss and told Parkhouse that he only had seven minutes to get his pads on.

The battle of the veterans then commenced with 43 year old Reg Perks opening the bowling for Worcester against 50 year old Emrys Davies, the very essence of Welsh Wales. After a slow start Davies was caught behind by Australian Noel Hughes, who resembles the man he was deputising for, Hugo Yarnold, quite a bit. Parkhouse, sweaterless despite the weather, and Hedges went on their way slowly and carefully, the only incident of note was when Bird, from short leg, hit the stumps at the bowler's end. Umpire Buller raised his arm to signal byes and Parkhouse paused thinking he was out, but soon realised he was not.

 However the zealous scoreboard operator was already putting up two wickets down, the last man's score and the fall of the last wicket. Commendable speed, but sadly jumping the gun somewhat. Rain in fact restricted play to three and a half hours on the first day after which Glamorgan declared. After two more declarations Worcester were set the unlikely target of 224 in two hours. In the end Glamorgan very nearly won, having reduced Worcester to 132-8, but Jenkins, in his element, batted an hour for six not out to ensure the game ended as a draw.

One still puzzling incident occurred when the Worcester captain declared the first innings closed on 218-8 with the Sri Lankan, Laddie Outschoorn on 99 not out. Whether it was a genuine mistake, thinking he had completed his hundred, or not, remains a mystery to this day.

Many years later when Worcester had abandoned the venue for championship games and played only occasional Sunday league matches, the home of Dudley cricket club ceased to host cricket of any kind following a huge depression appearing on the outfield just before a league game in May 1985. This had been caused by the old limestone mines below the ground and the whole area, including the neighbouring football ground was closed for good.

This picture shows the abandoned ground in the late 1980s with only the old pavilion, as shown in the painting above, remaining.

The site has now been developed as a large retail outlet and all trace of the sports grounds has gone.

Despite its rather bleak outlook to the north I have fond memories of the ground in the 1950s when I would regularly cycle the nine miles from school in Walsall to see the last two hours of play during mid week championship games. I also saw the great George Headley of West Indies fame who was Dudley's professional in the Birmingham League for several years.

His benefit game drew a huge crowd to see the big names of West Indies cricket appear, including Sir Learie Constantine by then past his best, but still a great favourite. Everton Weekes also scored a century that day. Headley's son Ron Headley started his cricketing career with the Dudley club before going on to play for both Worcestershire and the West Indies with distinction.

Dudley cricket club in 1956 with a very young Ron Headley, extreme left on the back row.                      Reg Perks, the veteran Worcestershire bowler is second from right on the front row.