The Twelfth Man 2019

Martyn Moxon (L) with John Ambler James spoke of Martyn’s cricket career as one of the Wombwell’s most celebrated old boys. He played for Yorkshire from 1981 to 1997, being captain from 1990 to 1995 and played in 10 Test Matches for England and eight One Day Internationals. Tonight’s guest, Martyn Douglas Moxon along with our President, Dickie Bird made the presentations to our young cricket stars of the fu- ture and their coaches supported by a plethora of proud parents and grandparents. After the presentations chairman James spoke of Martyn’s cricket career as one of the Wombwell’s most celebrated old boys. He played for Yorkshire from 1981 to 1997, being captain from 1990 to 1995 and played in 10 Test Match- es for England and eight One-Day Internationals. He scored over 21,000 first-class runs, and his debut was sensational - with two centuries in his first two home County Championship matches. With Ashley Metcalfe he estab- lished one of Yorkshire’s most fa- mous opening partnerships. It always seemed to those of us following his career that he should have played for England many more times but cruel injuries seemed to strike when he was at the top of his form. Martyn is the unluckiest of the eight men who have made made 99 in a Test but never a century. Against New Zea- land at Auckland in 1987/88 he had swept three runs off the mid- dle early in his innings, only for the umpire to give them as leg byes. He fell to Ewen Chatfield on 99. He was set to right this wrong in the next Test at Wellington— but rain washed out the last two days with Martyn stuck on 81 not out. He was a sound technician who was to accumulate 39 more centuries for Yorkshire in an aggregate of 18,973 runs at 43.71- as well as 22 wickets. Martyn became Yorkshire’s Direc- tor of Coaching before embarking on a six year stint with Durham, but returned as Director of Cricket in 2007, since when he has seen Yorkshire to two County Champi- onship titles. The question and answer session followed with Martyn impressively fielding questions on a wide range of cricket subjects including white- ball cricket, the spirit of the game after recent events in South Africa and India, the control of nerves (aptly asked by a junior), young- sters’ prospects for forthcoming season, 100 ball cricket, shorter pitches for juniors and so on. Martyn’s frank and friendly style immediately warmed him to the audience making us very proud to call him one of our ‘old boys’. A great evening was followed by our traditional pie and pea supper to conclude the 2018-19 Wombwell season. Review MARTYN MOXON AND JUNIOR PRESENTATION NIGHT 28 March 2019 “