61 For 1

Martin Chandler | 8:04am BST 25 August 2024

Published: 2024
Pages: 459
Author: Jones, Tim
Publisher: Private
Rating: 4 stars

Three years ago Tim Jones published The 52: Worcestershire’s Forgotten First Class Cricketers. The book’s purpose was to record the stories of the men who had played First Class cricket for the county, but who had never played in a County Championship match, and would therefore never be eligible for the numbering system that the county now adopt.

Having started with that one I suppose it was logical for Jones to continue his look at the county’s players with this one, a collection of essays on the 61 men who have made just a solitary appearance for the county in the Championship.

It is not, given that qualification for inclusion, surprising to see that only a handful of the 61 made any impression on the game in which they appeared, and of the five that did only one never played First Class cricket on a second occasion. The other four are overseas players more particularly the great South African fast bowler Alan Donald, and three New Zealanders in Mitchell Santner, Ish Sodhi and Colin Munro. Another regular Test player, the Sri Lankan pace bowler Dilhara Fernando, had only a modest return to show for his single appearance.

The other man who made a significant contribution to his only Championship game was Percy Morris, who scored 3 and 71 in a defeat by Leicestershire in July 1914. An amateur (he was a club cricketer who worked for a bank) it seems likely that the Great War was the main reason for his not playing again.

As with all of the entries in the book the biographical details are fully researched and appear after an initial account of ‘the match’ in which Morris made his appearance. That after that Jones has managed to track down much about Morris’s career in club cricket does not unduly surprise me, but the amount of personal information he has located beyond that is certainly impressive.

The overseas players apart there were two other names that I recognised while reading through 61 For 1, the first of whom was Reginald Moss. Unlike many featured Moss did have a history of First Class cricket, having played for Oxford University, MCC and Liverpool and District between 1887 and 1893. His sole appearance in the county colours came 32 years later, and a 57 year old Moss remains the oldest man to have played in the County Championship.

Many of the 61 are amateurs who made their sole appearance years ago, and many have interesting back stories. As author Jones writes in his introduction if you are interested in knowing who played rugby union for England; who is the only player to have made his first-class debut during World War I; who was known as the ‘Dudley Jessop’; who was the prisoner of war associated with the Great Escape; who raced in and won the first Fastnet Race; who played an unofficial Test Match for England during his time as a prisoner of war, or who bagged a pair in his only game … you will find the answers … and more, in this book.

But there are plenty of others. I was particularly intrigued by the story of Percy Farnfield, one of six brothers who all gained soccer blues at Cambridge, and Percy also played for England in an amateur international. Later he was ordered to be detained ‘at his majesty’s pleasure’ following a conviction for criminal libel. Despite that by 1925 the by then 44 year old Farnfield had regained his liberty and, of all things, was head of a boy’s preparatory school. And, to get into Tim Jones’ book, that summer he had a single undistinguished appearance in the county championship.

After which I should probably make the point that even the more conventional stories are written in such a way as to be of considerable interest. Sydney Shepherd, whose solitary outing with Worcestershire came in 1936 scored no runs and took no wickets. But he was a professional cricketer and had a long and distinguished career in the leagues and was still playing for Bootle, albeit by then as an amateur, in his late fifties.

The majority of the men featured come from the past, when raising a team was more difficult and the club employed few professionals. There are a few more recent figures, and for those there are men at the club who still recall them. A sad tale is that of Paul Roberts, whose single appearance came as a 22 year old in 1974. Three years later Roberts, by then released by the club, was tragically killed in a climbing accident.

So amongst all these fascinating characters whose story is the most interesting? For me there is a clear winner, and the other familiar name I referred to earlier, and is a man whose appearance for Worcestershire in the Championship came as recently as 2011. The man concerned is Adrian Shankar, now known as Adrian Shankar-Filho. Was/is Shankar an out and out ‘wrong ‘un’, or just a man who was so desperate to succeed as a cricketer that he sometimes went too far in what he said? Perhaps one day he will write a book himself, and we will be able to form a view – I hope so.

61 For 1 is an excellent read and highly recommended, and not just to Worcestershire supporters, as anyone with an interest in the game will find it a worthwhile investment. There are three ways the book can be obtained, all via the author who can be emailed at timajones405@aol.com. There is a paperback, a hardback and a limited edition of, of course, 61 copies of the hardback individually numbered and signed by Jones and one of the men featured, the sadly now deceased Mike Passey. The cost, including UK postage, is £21, £30 and £35 respectively, and a few copies of the limited edition are on their way to Roger Page in Australia.