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Post by hhsussex on Dec 5, 2014 10:12:45 GMT
The recent gift of some 1960s Playfair Cricket Monthly magazines and some of the articles in them set me looking again at the career records of some of the players of this era. The 60s was a fairly undistinguished time for cricket: a succession of dull, rainy summers; the feeling that those who had recently departed from the scene, such as Hutton, May, Compton, Evans, were of greater stature than most of those who remained; some dour yet curiously uncompetitive draws (Manchester 1964, anyone); and through it all, players whose promise remained unfulfilled, such as Milburn, or who stopped short of greatness because of boredon, like Dexter, or the lack of that extra ingredient that turns talent into genius, perhaps Robin Hobbs was one such.
But one thing that did characterise the county teams of that era, particularly for someone who was growing up at that time and had split allegiances, was the plethora of soccer players, some of high quality, who regularly played high-class cricket. Not all of the best footballers shone as cricketers, and vice versa, but there were a surprising number who maintained good performance levels at both games.
Here is a list, a partial list, of players in the 60s who were active at both games. Sometimes they only made a few county cricket appearances, others were regular and successful county players who were reserves at soccer in the winter. They exclude a couple of more famous names whose soccer career was over before their cricket really blossomed. As far as possible I've tried to organise them as a team, in roughly 4-2-4 formation, but I welcome any further, or rival contributions
Jim Standen (Worcestershire; Arsenal and West Ham)
Eddie Presland (Essex; West Ham and Crystal Palace)
Derek Ufton (Kent; Charlton Athletic and England)
Chris Balderstone (Yorks and Leicestershire and England; Huddersfield, Carlisle, Doncaster, Queen of the South)
Malcolm Scott (Northants; Newcastle United, Darlington and York City)
Graham Cross (Leicestershire; Leicester City, Brighton, Preston - England U-23)
Ian Buxton (Derbys; Derby County and Luton Town)
Harold Jarman (Gloucestershire; Bristol Rovers and Newport County)
Stuart Leary (Kent; Charlton Athletic and Queens Park Rangers)
Ron Tindall (Surrey; Chelsea, West Ham, Reading and Portsmouth)
Mike Hellawell (Warwickshire; Queens Park Rangers, Birmingham, Sunderland and Huddersfield - England)
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Post by Wicked Cricket on Dec 5, 2014 11:02:21 GMT
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Post by hhsussex on Dec 5, 2014 11:21:21 GMT
hhs, Really good research. Have there been many books on the subject? I think that was the beginning of the end, when soccer became so big-time that the wages far outstripped anything cricket could offer, and when training and fitness became paramount, so that the likes of Leary, who negotiated a deal with Kent to miss the first and last few games of each season in order to play soccer, were no longer considered to be single-minded enough in their pursuit of excellence. But the money side of it was sociologically significant too: up until 1961 and the George Eastham case footballer's wages were capped at £12 per week. That was not significantly different money to what they would earn as cricketers and therefore soccer offered another means of getting through the winter, in those days of limited overseas coaching opportunities, and very few sponsoring contracts. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 5, 2014 11:44:54 GMT
I'm glad you enjoyed those old magazines, hh, and put them to such profitable use. I've actually got another pile here for you which I shall bring down some time!
Off the top of my head a few other names from that era - Arthur Milton, Ken Higgs, Jim Cumbes, Ian Buxton and Ian Hall. Geoff Hurst famously played one match for Essex in 1962 and Mickey Stewart and one or two other Surrey players were top-flight amateuer footballers for Corinthian Casuals. I also remember from my youth that Hampshire's 1961 championship winning side had three pro footballers in Henry Horton, Michael Barnard and Jimmy Gray.
From your list, I'm proud to say that I know Derek Ufton very well. He played in the most famous match in the history of my club, Charlton Athletic - v Huddersfield in 1957, when Charlton were 5-1 down with 20 minutes to go and came back to win 7-6. I once asked Derek about his memories of the match and was very disappointed that he didn't have much to say about it - he was carried off after 20 minutes with a dislocated shoulder at 1-0, and followed the rest of the game on the radio from the hospital casualty ward. I told him that to have played in a match that produced 13 goals and to have only seen one of them was quite an achievement!
There may well have been three Kent cricketers playing for Charlton that day - Ufton, O'Leary and Sid O'Linn.
In the modern era, Joe Denly was on Charlton's books as a schoolboy. Both his father and brother have managed Herne Bay, a locality which I believe you know well, although I doubt you ever went to watch the town's football team?
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Post by deepfineleg on Dec 5, 2014 19:12:37 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Dec 5, 2014 19:50:25 GMT
hhhsussex wrote :
The 60s was a fairly undistinguished time for cricket: a succession of dull, rainy summers; the feeling that those who had recently departed from the scene, such as Hutton, May, Compton, Evans, were of greater stature than most of those who remained.
Did it feel like that at the time to young boys falling in love with the game? Not to me (and you are only a few months older than me, hh).
Cowdrey, Dexter, Barrington, Boycott, Edrich, Graveney, Close, Parks, D'Oliveira, Knott, Underwood, Illingworth, Trueman and Statham all seemed like gods - plus it was the era when overseas players started coming into the county game in decent numbers : Sobers, Asif, Majid, Richards, Proctor, Lloyd, Mushtaq, Chappell, Khanai etc.
I know that county cricket ticked over at 2.5 runs per over and even in the Gillette Cup, 200 in 60 overs was regarded as a winning score. But to me it will always be a golden age!
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Post by hhsussex on Dec 5, 2014 22:51:44 GMT
hhhsussex wrote :
The 60s was a fairly undistinguished time for cricket: a succession of dull, rainy summers; the feeling that those who had recently departed from the scene, such as Hutton, May, Compton, Evans, were of greater stature than most of those who remained.
Did it feel like that at the time to young boys falling in love with the game? Not to me (and you are only a few months older than me, hh).
Cowdrey, Dexter, Barrington, Boycott, Edrich, Graveney, Close, Parks, D'Oliveira, Knott, Underwood, Illingworth, Trueman and Statham all seemed like gods - plus it was the era when overseas players started coming into the county game in decent numbers : Sobers, Asif, Majid, Richards, Proctor, Lloyd, Mushtaq, Chappell, Khanai etc.
I know that county cricket ticked over at 2.5 runs per over and even in the Gillette Cup, 200 in 60 overs was regarded as a winning score. But to me it will always be a golden age!
The dull, rainy summers were constant and I still remember and resent them. Yes, the players you recall were and still are immovable in their pantheon, but think also of their contemporary rivals; Geoff Pullar, the Middlesex gang of Russell, Parfitt, the highly professional but limited Freddie Titmus, the perspiring trier John Price; plodding old David Brown and even more trundley carthorse Fred Rumsey. And then in county cricket the honest professionals, whom one could admire at their peak (Tom Cartwright, Don Shepherd,Derek Shackleton, Alan Jones, Arthur Milton), but down somwehere on the lower slopes, where the cows grazed contentedly and ribbons were plaited in their manes, dwelt Derek Morgan, Gordon Barker, Bernard Hedges, John Mortimore, Henry Horton, Alan Dixon,Terry Spencer, Brian Crump, Ian Thomson, Martin Horton and Doug Padgett. The bright moments stand out:a hot August afternoon on a beach, listening on a transistor as Higgs and Snow made that record last wicket stand against West Indies at the Oval; the thrill two years later as Graveney and then D'Oliveira made good all that patient work that Edrich had built all summer, and then the ebb and flow of events as time shifted to that last frenetic afternoon; doing O Levels next summer and coming home to Phil Sharpe's sudden recall with a dazzling 80 against the West Indies, the sudden realisation that despite England collapsing at Lord's and Illingworth and Hampshire saving them, that we actually could win against the West Indies. Of course borderman is right, there must have been many moments that seemed brighter, and perhaps Peter Parfitt may have been a hero, and Fred Rumsey an object of veneration. One sees now the things one would have liked to have seen, and remembers only what fits with the image, however it has been retained. My live cricket was a little later than borderman's and therefore I reacted as a child of television to the impulses of that era. |
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