Seymour Clark of Somerset: An Appreciation
Martin Chandler |Published: 1995
Pages: 16
Author: Rosenwater, Irving
Publisher: Private
Rating: 4 stars
Irving Rosenwater first wrote about Seymour Clark in 1975, a short piece in The Cricketer. Thirteen years later another of my favourite writers, Westcountryman David Foot, paid tribute to Clark, then 86, in the pages of Wisden Cricket Monthly. Seven years later Clark departed this mortal coil and Rosenwater decided to revisit his brief but remarkable career in this appreciation, in effect an extended obituary.
Clark was 25 before he played any cricket at all but, once selected to play for a side raised by his employer, Great Western Railways, he proved himself to be a remarkably talented wicketkeeper. So skilled was Clark behind the stumps that, five years after that first exposure to the game, an extended trial of five First Class matches saw him keep with such competence that he was offered a professional contract.
The job security was better with GWR however, so Clark did not accept the offer that Somerset made and continued as nothing more than a club cricketer. At that level he did score a few runs, although he remained adamant that double figures always eluded him. His First Class career with the bat was consistency personified; in nine visits to the crease he was dismissed seven times for a duck, and the giddy heights, twice, of 0* did not disturb his career average from that admirable figure of 0.00.
It isn’t clear whether Rosenwater actually knew Clark, or whether he relied exclusively on the testimony of others, but he certainly learned a good deal about the character of the man in his researches, and this appreciation of Clark is up there with the best of Rosenwater’s output. Seymour Clark of Somerset: An Appreciation appeared in an edition of 50 copies.
Leave a comment