Cricket Stories

Chris Bennell writes:

BARCLAY SCORES WELL!

The guest speaker at the Club’s monthly lunch on 14th March was John Barclay, former captain of Sussex CCC and President of the MCC in 2009/10.  This occasion was always going to be a highlight for cricket aficionado (and MCC member) Tony Ashby during his year as our President and so it proved.  John was a charming lunch companion – very interested in others’ experiences and views notwithstanding his own achievements – and a wholly engaging speaker.  This was one of the very few times during my Club membership that I can recall no nodding heads post lunch, and even the two or three members present who were brave enough to admit that they didn’t like cricket (!!) would probably concede that they greatly enjoyed John’s talk.

 

John’s history as a full-time cricketer – debut for Sussex at 16 and six years as county captain, curtailed when injury forced his retirement at 32 – obviously provided scope for plenty of memories and anecdotes.  In fact, while these were not wholly absent, John had more to say about the work of the Arundel Castle Cricket Foundation, of which he became the inaugural Director of Cricket & Coaching– at the instigation of Colin Cowdrey – when his county cricket career ended, and a role in which he remains fully engaged.  For those who don’t know, and I was among them until the lunch, the Foundation does great work with young people, particularly from less advantaged backgrounds, who are new to cricket and may never before have been to the country, still less inside a restored castle! A far cry from the less than favourable attention that some Australian cricketers are currently receiving…….

 

The lunch was rounded off with Peter Nilsson giving full rein to his barrister’s skills in an appropriately fulsome vote of thanks.  All in all, alongside the best and most memorable of the Probus lunches I have attended in my five years as a member.