The Twelfth Man 2019

Alan Butcher (R) with Ron Firth 30 31 Our chair, James introduced this afternoon’s guest Alan Raymond Butcher, born January 7, 1954 and part of a strong cricket family. An aggressive left-hand opening bats- man, with a fondness for hitting shots off the back foot, he is re- garded as unfortunate in being a member of the England one-cap club. He played Test cricket against India in 1979 and an ODI against Australia the following year. He was Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1991. Alan began his career with Surrey in 1972 as a left-arm fast-medium bowler, but started opening the batting in 1975, and stayed with Surrey for 15 years. When Gra- hame Clinton joined the county in 1979, the two formed a long-stand- ing opening partnership, which was to include 19 century stands for Surrey, including 277 against Yorkshire in 1984. In 1979, he was picked to play for England against India in a Test Match at The Oval, but he did not settle, and only managed scores of 14 and 20. He was not selected for England again, in spite of the opinion of then cap- tain, Mike Brearley, who rated him one of the top players of fast bowl- ing in the county game. During his time with Surrey, Alan averaged between 1,300 and 1,700 runs each season. In 1986 Surrey did not renew his contract, and Alan seriously con- sidered retiring but Glamorgan approached him with an offer of a place, and he rose to be captain in 1989 before retiring in 1992. He made 22,667 first-class runs in 684 innings, with 46 hundreds and a highest score of 216 not out. His most productive season was 1990, when he scored 2,116 runs at 58.77. He also took 141 wickets in his career at 38.53, with a best innings analysis of 6-48. Alan went on to coach Essex and Surrey, but made a surprise come- back as a player for Surrey in 1998 at the age of 44 , when injury left them short of players. His recall co- incided with the day his son, Mark made his maiden Test century for England against South Africa. He then went into a life of internation- al coaching with over 3 years with Zimbabwe. Alan gave us lots of stories and an- ecdotes of his life in county cricket with many relating to his legendary opening partnerships with Gra- ham Clinton. He recalled playing at Barnsley in the B&H Cup in the 70s (which they narrowly won). Af- ter his Test debut in 1979 it was expected that he would be picked for the Ashes tour that winter and the story goes that at the airport, as the players were leaving, selec- tor Ted Dexter asked where Butch was. Roland Butcher was pointed out to him to which he retorted ‘that’s not the Butcher I picked!’ (The previous season Alan had made 1,600 whilst Roland Butcher had made 900). He spoke of his sporting family with his two broth- ers, Martin and Ian playing county cricket and both his sons, Mark and Gary following suit. Stories continued about facing the greats of his day - Holding, Roberts, Both- am, Malcolm, Snow, Garner et al. The Q&A session took us well into overtime to conclude a first class afternoon. Alan began his career with Surrey in 1972 as a left arm fast-medium bowler. ALAN BUTCHER 11 March 2019