The Twelfth Man 2019

Paul Dyson (L) with Mick Pope Brian Sanderson (L) with Norman Hazell Our chairman, James introduced tonight’s guest Paul Dyson, who last came to the Wombwell twenty years ago when James remembers listening to him in the body of this hall. Paul was a music master, and in 1976 he became Easingwold School’s youngest ever head of department, a role he was to fulfil for 33 years before continuing as a freelance music teacher. Tonight we heard about Paul‘s role as a statistician and archivist. As a member of the Yorkshire Cricket Foundation’s Archives Committee he tirelessly wades through the letters which come in from enthusiasts and when it comes to taking up their queries, nothing is too much trouble. Paul had already written A Century of Headingley Tests and Yorkshire’s 30 Championships - that is up to 2001 - and tonight he toldus about the Who’sWho of Yorkshire County Cricket Club , the first edition of this important work since that written 26 years ago by our own Tony Woodhouse. Paul began by outlining previous publications on ‘Who’s Who’ including the one by Tony. He then went on to tell us about all the background work that went into it - and a massive amount of research work it was too. A major consideration was all the different types of modern cricket, including Twenty20, and ladies’ cricket, leading to tough decisions about what to include or exclude. A lot of facts about county cricketers proved very difficult to establish (for example, in some cases, differences in recorded dates of death, or places of death) and he had to seek assistance from various experts including our own Mick Pope. After years of work and research, light was seen at the end of the tunnel by early 2017. The text was completed by early October 2017 and an initial print of 2,000 copies was ready in time to go on sale at Yorkshire’s AGM in 2018. The question and answer session proved especially interesting and included a long discussion as to when the County Championship officially started. Vice-Chair Jack Tunnicliffe introduced our very own Bri- an Sanderson to talk to us about his custodian duties at the YCCC Museum and Archives. He started his pres- entation by giving us some background of his own local cricket career which included playing in the same team as Geoff Cope at school, the local village team, then for the Yorkshire Bank and onto the Bradford League. On retirement from work Brian became interested in crick- et memorabilia which eventually led to his present role. In view of the forthcoming centenary of the Armistice, Brian then spoke about the Yorkshire players who died in the First World War. The first was James Rothery who was badly wounded in 1916 but died much later, after the war, when complications and gangrene set in. The second was Fairfax Gill who came from a large cricket- ing family in Wakefield and was also badly wounded and later died in 1916. Third, and perhaps the most famous, was Major Booth from Pudsey who played for the Congs before moving to Wath CC and then for Yorkshire and England. After service in Egypt he was posted to France with the Leeds Pals Brigade in which Roy Kilner also served. Major was later killed in the Somme offensive. Brian also enlightened us about what cricket did take place between 1914-18 and also in the immediate post war period involving Australian servicemen. The question and answer session concentrated mainly on the YCCC Museum and Archives as well as Brian’s hobby of collecting memorabilia, with some fascinating stories, to conclude a superb evening. 22 23 BRIAN SANDERSON 8 November 2018 PAUL E. DYSON 25 October 2018