The Twelfth Man 2014

! 5 T riumph and Tragedy was the Wombwell story of 2013-14. Our autumn dinner with Yorkshire President Geoffrey Boycott was the triumph par excellence – and how fitting that Geoffrey should be photographed that night with Society stalwart Margaret Harrison, who was to die of cancer a few weeks later. During the 2013 summer we lost Treasurer Roy Foster, also after a brave battle with cancer. Margaret was the Wombwell Committee member for whom nothing was too much trouble: she would run the raffle, approaching the bench on cue to offer the bag to the speaker(s), and she would scarcely give herself time for an about- turn before hoisting her camera to take the official presentation-glass pictures for the Twelfth Man . Roy took over as Treasurer at New Year 2007, probably the darkest hour in the Wombwell's 63- year history, and I will never forget his reply when I asked him at the first of the Committee's nine crisis meetings that year how he felt: “I am pretty frightened at what I have heard so far.” Yet he stuck to this harrowing task, and he never flinched. Richly deserved tribute is paid to Margaret and Roy in these pages. We heaved a mighty sigh of relief when Brian Sanderson agreed to be nominated as Treasurer to succeed Roy: Society Treasurers are thin on the ground, and to bag someone like Brian with his banking background is a catch some societies would give their right arms for. Not quite a tragedy, but certainly a head-scratcher: I was bending my brain to this report when word came through that the Ardsley House Hotel was to close during the summer: gone is the convenience of hosting speakers across the road before the meetings and giving them overnight stay if they have travelled a long distance or the weather has turned during the evening. One view is that if we have to move we look for a package under which the evening starts and ends under the same venue – but the crunch will come when we compare rental costs. But back to the triumphs: Geoffrey was wonderful value, as he always is, and wasn't he a great Yorkshire President? He put himself about among the members throughout his two years in office, and his assessments of the prospects of the county's young hopefuls will bear scrutiny in the years ahead. Nor should any of us forget Mrs Rachael Boycott's contribution to Yorkshire's 150 th anniversary celebrations. We were not to know that Yorkshire first team coach Jason Gillespie was not in the best of health when he came to the Wombwell, but this may have added to his pungency. He cartainly left us in no doubt as to who he expects to make it for Yorkshire and England and who not. It was good to hear that wicket-keeper/batsman Barney Gibson, the youngest-ever first-class cricketer and who has been to the Wombwell twice, figures high in Jason's expectations. Thanks also to Dave Callaghan, of Radio Leeds, who led the evening. Former Surrey and England off-spinner Pat Pocock, who never quite succeeded Jim Laker and Fred Titmus, recalled with a gentle humour days when England now look better than they did at the time – gentle, because despite bagging 6-79 the first time he played against Australia he made only sporadic appearances for England, and was left out for eight years before his final triumph in partnership with Phil Edmonds. It was good to have a Voice From the South , and it was brought to us by Judge Anthony -- “call me Tony” -- a stalwart of YCCC Southern Group and an experienced writer on Yorkshire cricket. Tony had just written Frank Mitchell, Imperial Cricketer about the extraordinary character who caught Lord Hawke's eye while still at Cambridge, and their friendship seems to have survived Mitchell being capped for South Africa as well as England – the 1912 Triangular Tournament being his international swansong. Yorkshire skipper Andrew Gale had accepted a late invitation to play club cricket in Australia, so we did not get him for the Christmas Sunday WCLS Chairman James Greenfield reviews a year of triumph and tragedy