The Twelfth Man 2020

THE MATCHSTICK BUST OF DR. W G GRACE Where does your love of cricket come from? Believe it or not, it was a Lancastrian family friend who took me, at very short notice, to Headingley in 1948 to watch Yorkshire versus Lancashire. Up to then I’d only listened to some cricket from Test Matches and read newspaper reports. I was only just coming up to my teens but when he said, “I will show you a great cricketer called Washbrook”, I quickly re- plied, “He’s not as good as Hutton. He will score a century.” The match was drawn, Washbrook scored 170 and Hutton just 100 as I had predicted or rather boasted about. Len Hutton became my hero - for- ever. We’d only attended two days but I thought it was the best place I’d ever been to and I wanted more. But I wasn’t able to attend many more county matches for several years as I had no one to take me to the games. In 1952 I was working in a school alongside a teacher who was a Yorkshire member so I was able to attend more matches with her and that’s when I put my name on the waiting list to be- come a member. What is your current interest in cricket? I watch the Yorkshire First-team home and away and I also enjoy watching Second XI matches but a great love is watching the Academy. It’s such a pleasure to see how they grow - and they really do grow - and develop as cricketers and human beings. The visit of these boys to the Wombwell with Richard Damms who, alongside Ian Dews, do a wonderful job - well, it is the highlight of all the meetings for me. When the younger players move into the Second team and then the First that’s so wonder- ful! I first saw some of the present First XI play as teenagers in the Academy and Second XI, such as Bairstow, Root, An- drew Gale and Lyth. It has always been a pleasure and a privilege to meet the par- ents and other family members of these youngsters. I also attend the Wombwell and the North- ern Cricket Societies, both for many years and I enjoy the meetings and have formed so many friends; some no longer with us but not forgotten. I was introduced to Tony, my late husband by the then secre- tary of the Northern. What is your earliest memorable moment in cricket? There have been so many but I’ll go back to 1948 again and my first ever Test Match, England versus Australia at Head- ingley: Bradman, Lindwall, Miller and Neil Harvey’s maiden Test century! We had queued for several hours and oh, the re- lief when we entered the ground as the gates were shut on most days leaving sev- eral thousand people outside. I’ve attend- ed Test Matches most years ever since. Who is your favourite player? Apart from Sir Len Hutton, you mean? It’s impossible to name or pick out just one player; I have seen and admired so many and seen some wonderful performances over the years. Of course I have a soft spot for some, but they will remain my secret. What is your favourite ground? Favourite grounds have to be Lord’s and Trent Bridge. There was something magi- cal about Lord’s and its importance in the game - and even more so now, after being allowed into the pavilion. For me, Trent Bridge has retained more of the look of a cricket ground rather than a stadium, as most of the Test grounds have become. Features MY LOVE OF CRICKET… WITH AUDREY WOODHOUSE A column appeared in the April 1969 edition of the Playfair Crick- et Monthly written by the late Ron Yeomans, then Secretary of the Northern Cricket Society, about a matchstick bust of Dr W G Grace made by Vic Wilson, a Leeds bus driver (not the former Yorkshire crick- eter!). Mr Wilson – a non-smoker - adver- tised locally for matchsticks and had a reputation for making top quality models. Previously, he had made scale models of the Tower of London, St Paul’s Cathedral, the Taj Mahal and the Golden Hind. The life-size head and shoulders of the cel- ebrated cricketer was made from 12,454 matchsticks and took 146 hours to build over a period of nine months. The match- sticks were glued together, sandpapered and then varnished. At the time the model was widely displayed in Yorkshire and for a good part of the summer of 1969 was a popular feature in the Memorial Gallery at Lord’s Cricket Ground in London. To coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the original article, Geoff Wellsteed*, a writer and an umpire for the York & District Senior League, drafted a contri- bution for the Cricket Memorabilia Soci- ety magazine. As part of his research he contacted the Yorkshire Cricket Founda- tion at Headingley to enquire if they had any knowledge of the bust’s existence or whereabouts but drew a blank. So, im- agine his absolute surprise when, within two months of writing the article, he um- pired a match at Goole Town CC and saw the ‘lost’ bust in the club’s trophy cabinet. He contacted Dave Caldicott, the Club Sec- retary who, gratifyingly, was able to track down the original correspondence with Lord’s. The model was displayed at Headingley as part of the YCF’s 2019 Ashes feature. * Geoff Wellsteed has visited WCLS on two occasions - in 2011 when he spoke about about ‘cricketing pubs’ featured in his book Inns & Outs  (see page 33 of Twelfth Man , Jubilee Edition) and in 2015 and spoke about the 26 first-class cricketers born in Reading, featured in his book Inside the boundary.