Les Jackson and Cliff Gladwin: Masters of their Craft

Martin Chandler | 9:08am GMT 24 November 2024

Published: 2024
Pages: 206
Author: Shawcroft, John
Publisher: ACS
Rating: 3.5 stars

John Shawcroft is a Derbyshire man through and through, and the two subjects of his latest book are two classic examples of cricketers from that county. So the last thing I expected to see at the start of the book were those two famous stanzas from Francis Thompson’s homilly to two Lancastrian heroes of the ‘Golden Age’, those flickering run stealers, ‘Monkey’ Hornby and Dick Barlow.

But I only needed to read the first chapter to understand. Shawcroft first watched Derbyshire play in 1946, so he spent his formative years watching Jackson and Gladwin at work, and it is an understatement in the extreme to suggest anything other than that these two opening bowlers were anything other than very, very good at what they did.

Gladwin’s career proper began in 1946 and ended in 1958. Only twice did his season’s bowling average exceed twenty, in 1949 slipping to 21.47 after a winter in South Africa in which his 42 wickets had come at 22.50 runs each. Jackson’s first season of 1948 saw him pay 25.27 runs for each of his wickets, and his last of 1963 saw him average 21.95, but overall his 1.733 wickets cost 17.36 runs each, a marginally better record than his partner’s, 1,653 at 18.30. No wonder then that for Shawcroft the impression left by these two remarkable bowlers was much like that left by Hornby and Barlow on Thompson.

Thanks to the Second World War both men were late starters, Gladwin being 30 before he hit his straps and Jackson 27. Neither had much of a Test career, Gladwin being capped eight times between 1947 and 1949 with only modest success. Jackson was selected for England just twice, once against New Zealand in 1949, and then again a dozen years later in 1961 as a replacement for the injured Brian Statham.

The danger in any book like this is that it ends up just being the author picking at scorecards in order to describe his subjects’ playing careers. Neither Jackson nor Gladwin did anything of note outside cricket and, as effectively ordinary working men, did not attract much controversy other than in relation to their many disgruntled admirers bemoaning the England selectors constant overlooking of them, particularly Jackson. Overcoming that obstacle where both men’s careers ended more than half a century ago and both departed this mortal coil years ago makes the task even more difficult.

Fortunately for current cricket lovers this double biography was put together by, probably, the only man alive who was able to do justice to the memory of these two fine cricketers. Shawcroft knew both, and often saw them play. He can therefore write with first hand knowledge, and also with the benefit of conversations over the years with all of the pairs’ teammates. This enables him to write with great insight and, more importantly for present purposes, in a way that holds his reader’s interest.

John Shawcroft must be well into his eighties now, and has done Derbyshire cricket a great service by writing up the lives of Gladwin and Jackson, but I hope he isn’t quite finished yet. Christopher Sandford’s last book reminds me what interesting characters their predecessors, the Pope brothers and George in particular were. And then there are their immediate successors, Harold Rhodes and Brian (no relation) Jackson. And as their reign came to an end there is Alan Ward of course, and Mike Hendrick, so plenty more for him to be getting on with.