Sheffield Cricket Lovers' Society Year Book 2022

40 As a youngster my enthusiasm for several sports was rewarded with only a modicum of measurable success. But I was sport da and my rst International representation was playing Ashes cricket and, what’s more, so did my elder brother. e fact that I was only ten years old, Brian three years older, and the matches played on Tooting Bec Common never seemed to lessen the excitement! It didn’t even bother us that one of us had to be Neil Harvey whilst the other became English hero, Willie Watson, meaning we had to bat le -handed. e oak tree (still there) we played against at least ensured tangible evidence that the series was fought on English soil... Having played football for school in Balham, circumstances dictated I moved up to She eld at eleven, where I continued in similar fashion. en playing table tennis in the city leagues at my usual modest level was my rst departure from the major games. Cricket provided me with a lot of fun for a long time, as a bowler with She eld Bankers whom I played with for seventeen years; wonderful memories there and later with Hallam, Collegiate, Millhouses and orncli e Rec. Only twice did I register anything noteworthy, bamboozling ex Somerset batsman Peter Denning for ve balls before getting him caught and bowled in a friendly, then opening the bowling at Baslow with Roy Pilgrim (Yorkshire Our own sporting lives can take any shape or form; playing, watching, broadcasting on, officiating and so on. GRAHAM DIXON had an unexpected and dramatic development in his 20s which changed his sporting life....