The Twelfth Man 2020

Features Where does your love of cricket come from? How did it start? My Dad and my Uncles Arnold, Bert and Fred all played for Wakefield. I’d left Thornes House Grammar School in the summer of 1948 where, in those happy days, two afternoons per week for cricket was part of the curriculum and I took part from the age of eleven. Naturally, I too headed for College Grove where I played for Wakefield Boys and a few times for the Second XI. President Dickie tells me that I met him in 1949 whilst playing at Shaw Lane. In those relaxed days, with no limit on overs, each club arranged their own fixtures. The First Team was in the massive Yorkshire Council and the Seconds in the West Riding League. So cricket was in the Hazell blood. All my brothers, Brian, Terry, Malcolm and Stephen took part. Malcolm was far and away the pick of the bunch, collecting many prizes. Years later I sneaked him into the Yorkshire Copper Works team for a couple of matches. In the first week he took 7 for 7; in the next 8 for 8, with his slow left arm - but then I had to let him go as there was a strict employees-only rule. That’s not all; my Dad’s cousin, Horace played 22 seasons for Somerset. where he once bowled a world-record 13 consecutive maiden overs What is your earliest memorable moment in cricket? My earliest ‘stand-out’ memory has to be the 1947 Test with South Africa. I took a bus from Wakefield, then a tram to Headingley to join a long, long queue, when the gates were shut, leaving thousands outside. A kind man lifted this pair of schoolboys over the wall, where we sat on the grass up to the boundary edge with thousands more. Tell us more about your own involvement in the game? I left Wakefield at the end of 1949, starting the next season with St Austin’s First Team playing in the prestigious Wakefield Union and for the youth team mid-week. That was how I spent the next four seasons while working as a trainee draughtsman at E Green and Son, who had a cricket team playing friendly matches all over the county. I remember once going in last at Carlton; the stumper went a long way back, so I asked him, “What’s up Sweetie?” He told me the fast bowler had just signed pro-forms so I’d better look out. Like all fast bowlers faced with a tailender he pitched it up fast and straight so my swing lifted it into the next field. The stumper came up laughing, “Bet you can’t do that again.” The next ball came just the same, fast, well pitched up and it followed straight out of the ground. Of course it couldn’t go on but I always remember the way Arthur Sweet laughed. A break in this routine occurred after call up to serve in the RAF, where sport proved a real attraction, particularly after wangling a transfer from Yatesbury in Wiltshire to Brampton just off the Great North Road. There I really threw myself into the game playing for Flight, Station and Command teams as well as the local village in the Huntingdon League and, when on leave, for Walton under all sorts of names, once taking five wickets for a man on his holidays - quite naughty! On return to Wakefield I changed job, joining Yorkshire Copper Works, finding they had a fine ground - the best in the Leeds area. During my 20 seasons with the club I was variously Secretary, Chairman and Captain making many friends. Eventually growing tired of every home match in Stourton I switched to Calder Grove where I joined brothers Malcolm and Stephen, as well as great guests Collis MY LOVE OF CRICKET… WITH NORMAN HAZELL Norman Hazell has been on the Society Committee for over 20 years and for several years edited this magazine. His whole life has been cricket as we find out here…