Sheffield Cricket Lovers' Society Year Book 2015

24 Sheffield Cricket Lovers’ Society twitter: @scloverssociety Mike opened up the evening by telling us how difficult it had been to get a very modest man to provide the material for the book. He pointed out that Mike Smith was probably one of the only Test captains in cricketing history who never fell out with anyone. The resulting book however gave the reader a clear insight into how Mike went about his life as a professional sportsman. He was one of the most popular of England captains carefully involving the whole team in his deliberations. His philosophy said if you were good enough to bowl for England then you were certainly capable of placing your fielders. Mike then took us through his early career at Leicester, then as Captain of Oxford University moving to Warwickshire in 1956 where he played until 1975. He remained very involved with Warwickshire, being Chairman of the Club from 1991 to 2003. Mike was also the first ICC match referee, a role he kept for five seasons 1991 to 1996. A lively Q & A session, well handled by both our guests, ended a splendid evening. The Indoor Season... Annual Dinner 7th April Another excellent evening, and some people have said, it was possibly our best dinner to date. Sir Michael Parkinson gave a short but lively address before he had to leave early in order to head back to London for an early doctor’s appointment the following day. Geoff Miller conducted an auction of just a few items but including Dickie Bird’s book ‘80 not out’ which was great fun because Geoff was very entertaining in his jokes about Dickie and these were taken in good spirit by the legendary umpire who had just been appointed President of Yorkshire CCC. Geoff Miller also spoke to us about some of his cricketing contemporaries and as always, was in excellent voice. We also heard from Father Dominic Milroy about his love of cricket and the evening was concluded with comedian Lea Roberts who kept his humour nicely safe. Once again David Baldwin did the Society proud with some very tasty fayre - a really enjoyable night. ...continued from page 16