The Twelfth Man 2020

W hat is meant by a great Test Match? To me it is a game which ebbs and flows throughout all of its four/five days and therefore looking back over Headingley’s Tests it is the 1998 and 2017 games which take pride of place rather than the ones of 1981, 2001 and 2019 which were given legendary status mainly through the efforts of one or two players and only in the latter stages of the matches. However, we’ve been asked for our recollections about the first and/or last of these, so here goes. The 1981 Headingley Test overlapped with the end of term and the start of the school holidays. No, I was no longer a pupil but just concluding my tenth year as a secondary school teacher and had, by then, spent five and a half years as Head of Music at Easingwold School, North Yorkshire. Day 1 of the match (the traditional Thursday) was a normal school day, if such a thing exists so close to the end of term, and I kept in touch with the progress of play via the radio; between lessons my office was often frequented by pupils wishing to know the latest score! The day was dominated (that’s definitely not the right word) by a turgid innings from my namesake, but definitely no relation, Australian John Dyson . Day 2 was the end of term and this heralded an early finish but not for me and several musicians who were due to give a concert in Coxwold Church that evening. For the uninitiated the village is just inside the North York Moors National Park and our venue had stunning views. We rehearsed during the afternoon then went to the vicar’s house for tea. His interest in cricket exemplified itself in three ways: when he went into his degree final exam in 1953 Watson and Bailey were batting and when he came out of the exam room they were still batting; his son played in a school team which I ran for four years through its age-groups and which was captained by Ian Dews; it also contained Kevin Hollinrake, now MP for Thirsk and Malton, and Bobby Mimms now former Everton and Spurs goalkeeper as well as Paul Bolland who played hockey in the 1988 Olympic Games; most importantly the vicar’s television was tuned to the cricket and I was able to catch something of more Australian slow batting and England briefly starting its reply. When I in- formed my fellow-viewers that I would be at Headingley on the following day, there did not seem to be much jealousy; Eng- land were already one-nil down in the series and not making much impact in this game. I have no memory of the concert but, looking at the programme again, I see that I had taken just senior pupils – two choirs and three instrumental groups and one song performed was Can it be True? We should have waited until the end of the game before performing that one! I went to Headingley for Day 3 with a former colleague, and his two sons, from my first school – St Aidan’s, Harrogate. He lived in Knaresborough so I drove from Easingwold to meet up. Of course we had no tickets - like everyone else – so had to queue but at least nobody searched our supplies of food and drink. The day, like the first two, was dull – I mean both the cricket and the weather. I have very little memory of England’s 174 except for some good shots in a half-century from Botham, who had taken six wickets in the Australian innings and seemed to be enjoying playing without the burden of captaincy for the first time since his sacking/resignation. The day ended in farce. Eng- land followed on and Gooch was out for a duck (he began the day on two not out and was out for two so we had seen him bat twice in the day and not score a single run). The umpires then took the players off for bad light, understandably, but when the sun came out they couldn’t bring them back on because of some ill-thought-out, petty regulation. Many, many hired cushions (who remembers those?) were thrown from where we were sitting on the Western Terrace. Sunday was a rest day for the cricketers but my wife and I spent most of it at our headteacher’s house. He had retired just two days previously and was hosting a lunch party for a select few colleagues who were mainly associated with music and/or PE. I recall very vividly expressing my opinions of the previous day’s play, that Australia would win, go two-nil up and would comfortably retain the Ashes. (There are still people who try to predict sport.) We had recently had an extension added to our kitchen and my schedule for the final two days of the Test was to paint the new window frames and listen to the commentary on the ra- dio. Despite the mounting excitement I stuck steadfastly to my task, probably I think, not really believing that England would pull it off. An adjudicator friend of mine had been working in Leeds on the Monday; he finished early and checked the score in anticipation of going to the ground. It was about the time when England were still needed 92 to make Australia bat again and had only three wickets left. He set off for his home in Sun- derland and missed Botham’s legendary innings to his eternal regret. I watched the highlights of the fifth day’s play and my abiding memory is of Bob Taylor, who had celebrated his 40th birthday on the Friday, leaping up and down like a vigorously enthusiastic ten-year-old – not just when he took his own four catches but in joyous celebration of all the other dismissals. Despite these recollections, I still have no great fondness for the match; the first three-and-a-half days were totally uninspiring. Yes, it did have an unbelievably compelling finale and maybe I am influenced by my attendance on one of the ‘wrong’ days, but I would always prefer five days of the advantage swinging first one day and then the other. I may be a party-pooper at the moment but if I had to choose the best Headingley Tests they would always be the ones in 1998 and 2017. MEMORIES OF HEADINGLEY ‘81 Paul Dyson Features