The Twelfth Man 2019

From the Wombwell Archive T he Society was as busy as ever during the win- ter season that spanned 1968-69 with a wide and varied collection of visitors and guests. The 16th edition of The Twelfth Man magazine (price 3/-) reviewed au- tumn evenings spent in the com- pany of West Indian wicket-keeper Deryck Murray, Rachel Heyhoe (she added Flint when she married in 1971), Kent’s Alan Knott and Col- in Page, a tribute dinner to Brian Statham (following his retirement), BBC weather forecaster Bert Foord and Don Brennan, Doug Padgett and Tony Nicholson were among the Yorkshire panel as 1968 came to a close. 1969 opened with news that Soci- ety Patron Sir Learie Constantine had been made a life peer. A young schoolboy batsman called Richard Lumb of Mexborough Grammar School won the Society’s Mau- rice Leyland award and in January WCLS members went on a theatre outing to the Sheffield Playhouse. Secretary Jack Sokell corresponded with a very wide range of people down the years, and one was Bo- ris Karloff, the actor, famous for his role as Frankenstein. The Society’s 1969 magazine carried news that the movie star had sadly passed away in February. Bill Frindall made it through a blizzard and fog from London to Barnsley and having ar- rived late he was met by the Secre- tary standing in the porch checking his watch. Led into a room where ten members were seated in a hall set for 100, Bill commented: “ ‘Oh, I’m not the last to arrive then.’ ‘Oh, yes you are,’ replied Jack. ‘you don’t expect folk to drive all the way from Leeds on a night like this, do you?’ Fred Rumsey, in equally ghast- ly weather, followed Frindall and then from Derbyshire came Har- old Rhodes, Peter Gibbs and David Smith. In March, Henry Blofeld was at Wombwell and into April Sussex visitors were Don Bates and Les Lenham. Even in mid-summer (July) the guests kept coming – Cricket Writer of Year for 1968 E W Swan- ton collected his award. As well as the plethora of meet- ings and gatherings the Society still found time to hold an annual 3-a-side indoor cricket tourney at Wombwell High School, a charity fashion parade at the same venue and the winter coaching nets were well attended, with Keith Earl se- curing a week’s coaching at Scar- borough as the recipient of the Sir Jack Hobbs Memorial Scholar- ship. Elsewhere there was sadness with the death of Patron, the Earl of Scarborough, in June 1969 and in August the loss of Society Chair- man Arthur Walker. The Twelfth Man noted: ‘rarely can the description “cricket lover” have been more fit- tingly applied than to Arthur Walk- er.’ At the 1969 AGM in September John Edrich became the Cricketer of the Year and John Arlott was vot- ed Cricket Writer of the Year. Arthur Walker – Chairman of the Society from 1964 until his death in August 1969 Archive 50 YEARS AGO: THE WOMBWELL IN 1969 MICK POPE LOOKS BACK AT THE SOCIETY IN 1969 AND 1994