The Twelfth Man 2015

20 A cold Monday morning in the East Riding. Drizzle seeps from a grim sky onto Goole AFC’s muddy pitch, dormant and deserted, as all around it the town cranks up for another working week. Houses rise on two sides of the field. Around the other two sides, across the railway, curve the river and docks with the rumbling and crashing of trade that has long powered the town. In 2014, Goole play home matches on this field, what remains of the Victoria Pleasure Grounds. Laid out to celebrate the diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria and once the sporting hub of the town, the plot is now home only to “The Vikings”. The stadium is spartan, a little downtrodden. The team attracts crowds of around 200 to watch workmanlike players struggle with their limitations, and today the field is empty and silent. But it carries the weight of sporting history, for it was on this field that Percy Jeeves first fledged as a cricketer. Visible from the centre-circle is the rear of 77 Parliament Street to which Jeeves, aged 13, moved when his father was transferred on the railways from West Yorkshire. After a few months in Parliament Street the family moved a short distance to 72 Manuel Street. They were still only five minutes walk from the Pleasure Grounds, and Percy and his two older brothers were often round there, playing football and cricket. It was clear the younger boy possessed exceptional ability for the latter. He hit the stumps often with the ball and the ball a long way with the bat. P ERCY J EEVES : F RAGMENTS F ROM A L IFE Brian Halford on the real life inspiration for P.G.Wodehouse On this field did 17-year-old Percy Jeeves make his debut for Goole 1st XI against Balby in 1905. He made 0 not out from No.11, but took three wickets as the visitors clung on for a draw. In the next match here, against Hull Congos, he took seven for 33 and scored 33 in a one- wicket victory. Jeeves was a deeply modest, charming young man but there was no mistaking – he had a special talent. For four summers, Jeeves graced this dockside plot with his brilliance. It was not always the most fragrant place to be. “The wind brought along with it engaging perfumes from the funnels of shipping in the docks”, the Goole Times correspondent noted one June day. “Judging from the spicy breezes which blew over Carter Street, some of the steamers must have run short of coal and been reduced to burning the old boots of the crew, together with a stray waistcoat or two thrown in”. But Percy didn’t care. He loved his cricket and carried his less gifted teammates right up until his last match with them, the final game of 1908, against Swanland Manor when, on this field, Jeeves scored 61 and took seven for 16 in a 79- run win. The boy could play. It is a lovely spring day in the small town of Hawes, nestling in the heart of Wensleydale, north Yorkshire. The wooden pavilion of Hawes Cricket Club, shuttered and silent, snoozes in the sunshine. To one side the narrow river flows gently beneath a little humped bridge that carries the road into the town centre five minutes away. In the other direction the road meanders uphill, disappearing from view behind thick trees through the tops