The Twelfth Man 2018

27 due to the strength of the Yorkshire batting line up and very limited opportunities up the order emigrated to Lancashire in 1966. A very sucessful career followed which included great success in the one day competitions with Lancashire classed as one of the one day specialist sides of that time. In 1980-83 Barry completed his first class career at Derbyshire. He hit over 1,000 runs in a season 8 times. He also played in 12 tests and toured India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and New Zealand. Barry was asked about the main characters in the Lancashire side and he gave us an all round and amusing summary of the main suspects including captain Jack Bond, David Lloyd, Clive Lloyd, Farokh Engineer, Frank Hayes, Harry Pilling, Ken Shuttleworth and many more. Malcolm encouraged Barry to tell us about a book he was going to write which ended up with a book being written by Farokh Engineer instead. Barry was asked about his time playing with Brian Statham and how good he was. Barry told us that as far he was aware only one batter got the better of Brian in his whole career and that was Barry Richards. The question and answer session went well into overtime to conclude a thoroughly entertaining afternoon. John Howarth OUR Chairman introduced tonight’s ‘special’ guest saying how delighted he was that we had one of our own this evening. John Stirling Howarth is not the first stalwart to have taken the platform himself, our Chaiman could not remember the last time a Society member who was a First class cricketer did so. John played for Nottinghamshire as a right- arm fast-medium bowler of some success, although as a batsman he is believed to hold the unfortunate record of the most first-class matches played without scoring a run, however he only had seven innings out of a theoretical maximum of 26 and these included three not outs together with four ducks! John actually heralds from Stockport, Cheshire, although Nottinghamshire seem to have thought they were getting a Lancastrian. His prime seasons were 1966 and 1967 under the captaincy of Norman Hill and in the immediate run up to the advent of Gary Sobers. In 13 first class games he took 19 wickets at an average just below 34. John, who also played for the Minor Counties, had five List A matches spread from 1976 to 1977, taking eight wickets at 18.12, with a strike rate of 35 balls per wicket and an economy rate of 3.08 runs per over and his best figures were 3-30. John who brought his wife Janet with him was keen to tell us that he met her whilst stacking pellets at CIS and Janet worked in the office. During that time John was playing in the Central Lancshire League where he was spotted by a Nottinghamshire. Committee man who invited him for a trial. The trial went well and John was offered a contract for three seasons at £400 per season. John then gave an entertaining background to his early playing days including the fun and Derek Randall (left) with John Howarth barrywood