Sheffield Cricket Lovers' Society Year Book 2012

27 Sheffield Cricket Lovers’ Society Our guest speaker for the Supper Evening, Yorkshire President, Ray Illingworth arrived in good time, enabling him to mix and meet with old friends in the bar. The format for the evening was the ‘supper meal’ to be followed by a short break, then after his introduction to the members, Ray gave a brief synopsis of the highlights of his long career followed by question and answers. After a well received supper the large number of members present listened intently as Ray gave some amusing insights into his time as touring captain in Australia. The question and answer period posed some probing questions on the future of English Cricket, Yorkshire Cricket and the England and Wales Cricket Board all answered by Ray, giving his reasons for the views expressed. The evening closed with all present aware that as far as Yorkshire County Cricket Club is concerned, it has a great future and that future will be home grown. John Wardle son of the Former Yorkshire & England player Johnny Wardle, was our guest for the final indoor meeting of the season. John was very keen to try to demonstrate to us by the use of various statistics that his father should have had a more extensive test career than the 28 Test matches in which he played. Johnny’s Tests were played over a ten year period,1948-1957, during which time he had to compete with Tony Lock for the spot as Jim Laker’s ‘partner’. As far as John was concerned the fact that Johnny had taken over 100 Test wickets at an average of just over 20 with an economy rate of 1.89 proved his point. There was no point in mentioning in 2011 that ‘Lock chucked his quicker one’, Those of us from the Johnny Wardle era will remember him as a fiercely competitive Yorkshire man who called a spade a spade. Maybe something other than bowling prowess came into the equation? It was however a very interesting evening and John has every reason to be proud of his dad. Baldwin’s Omega Retaurant was again the venue for our Annual Dinner. Guest of honour was MCC President Christopher Martin-Jenkins MBE who was also to receive the Goodwin Salver as our 2010 Cricket Ambassador of the year. A superb meal was followed by the presentation of the Award following which Christopher made an elegant and entertaining speech. The evening was rounded off by a very funny comedy performance from Johnny Casson. Our thanks once again to David Drabble and David Baldwin for a first class evening. The Indoor Season... ...continued