The Twelfth Man 2018

20 appeared for Derbyshire’s Second Eleven from 1965, making his one-day debut in 1971. He appeared fairly regularly in 1973, but then played only occasionally for a couple of years regaining a regular place in 1976 and holding it until the 1980 season. He won his county cap in 1977. Borrington played regularly for Derbyshire in limited overs cricket until 1980. He played one match in 1981 when they won the Nat West Trophy in1981. Tony was a right-hand batsman who played 122 first class matches with an average of 23.63 and a top score of 137. He played 150 one-day matches at an average of 21.22 and a top score of 101. In first class cricket he hit three centuries and one in List A cricket. A leg break bowler, who bowled 22 First class balls without taking a wicket and also kept wicket a few times. Tony now works at Grace Dieu Manor preparatory school in Leicestershire as a geography teacher and deputy headmaster. His son, Paul, signed a professional contract with Derbyshire in 2006. His talk was highly entertaining and contained a detailed run down of his career with stories and anecdotes of all the main players he played with and against facing Wayne Daniel whilst batting with Eddie Barlow, so much happened he could write a book about it. We were also entertained with stories about Fred Trueman who joined Derbyshire on a one year contract before he retired. Tony had more amusing stories about Fred but at the end of the day he held Fred in the highest regard and learned an awful lot from him. One story about Fred was adjudicating the man of the match gave the award to Tony despite good performances by Malcolm Marshall and Gordon Grenidge. When Tony said he was surprised to get the award Fred replied that ‘the overseas players were taking all the money so they’re not having bloody medals as well!’ We were also treated to stories about Derek Randall when he played against Australia. They decided not to speak to chatty Derek in the hope of putting him off, but this tactic didn’t work, Derek talked to himself whilst putting up an excellent score. The stories and anecdotes went on and on as did the question and answer session to end a superb evening. Geoff Cope.10.2017. The statistics tell us that Geoff played for Yorkshire over 15 seasons, that he took 630 first class wickets for Yorkshire at 24.80, and that he played three tests for England and two ODIs. With Colin Graves, Brian Bouttel and Robin Smith he saved Yorkshire from insolvency, but throughout all this he has never lost touch with the grass roots of the game. He has been a staunch friend of the cricket society movement and I always remember one of Geoff ‘s first cricket evenings that I attended when we had a film show complete with the Taj Mahal. Geoff talked about his book, ‘Sunshine and In Shadow’ written with Stephen Chalke,another staunch friend of this society, but before we move on to the cricket we must congratulate Geoff on his remarkable achievement of raising £200,000 for the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association. For over half a century, Geoff has been, and still is, a pivotal figure at Yorkshire County Cricket Club and this splendid book not only delves into lifetime peaks and troughs of one of White Rose crickets’ most popular personalities, but also contains a host of anecdotes, many of which have never been heard before. It is a story of ups and downs: early success followed by time Tony Borrington (right) with new Society Chairman Jack Tunnicliffe