Captain courageous: Hedley Verity
Cap duly doffed, last Saturday’s blog noted that Sam Potter – playing in the Wensleydale Evening League for Eryholme – had bagged all ten wickets for just one run against Spennithorne.
It steers former Independent cricket correspondent Stephen Brenkley towards the first class game and to a little poser: if bagging five in an innings is now known as a Pfeiffer – a genuflection to the actress Michelle of that ilk – what might all ten be called? Suggestions?
Anyway, the first class record is held by Hedley Verity, Yorkshire and England, who in 1932 claimed 10-10 – “wonderfully symmetrical” Steve supposes – against Nottinghamshire. The previous season he’d bagged all ten against Warwickshire and subsequently had 14 in a day in an Ashes encounter.
Verity was born in Leeds, where a Wetherspoons stands in his honour, and had taken 1,956 first class wickets at 14.90 when war intervened. He joined the Green Howards, was swiftly promoted to captain, but was wounded and captured in 1943 in Sicily and died in captivity.
He’s also saluted at the Green Howards Museum in Richmond, though the Spoons is called something else.
The second most economical first class ten-for was claimed by Leicestershire fast bowler George Geary, 10-18 against Glamorgan at Pontypridd in 1929, a feat which may have impressed cricket buffs more than it did his wife, a lady with no interest in the game.
Returning from Wales, Geary mentioned that he’d enjoyed quite a good match and taken 10-18. “Oh yes” said the lady withut turning round. “Well, I’ve left the grate for you to blacklead.”
*Cream teas and nutty slack, the late Jack Chapman’s wonderful history of club cricket in Co Duham, listed 106 ten-fors in the County Palatine up to 2002.
Among them was my old friend Bobby Orton, long familiar around Northern League football grounds to watch his lad Tom betwee the sticks, whose 10-20 for Kimblesworth against Coxhoe in 1989 included five with successive balls.
Among the most remarkable was the West Indian Wesley Thomas’s 10-27 for Blaydon against Lintz in 1988, a match in which he also scored 110.
Sam Potter could well have emulated him – but in the Wensleydale Evening League, batsmen must retire when they pass 50.
*In 2013 Jack Chapman wrote a sequel, Cream teas and canny crack, greatly kind towards me – though not, of course, for any playing prowess.
Jack not only noted that my columns at the time had a pretty wide reach but included the world’s most convoluted joke, about three squaws, sent by a reader in the USA.
“One slept on a deer skin, another on an elk skin, the third on a hippotamus skin. All three became pregnant. The first two had baby boys, the one on the hippo skin had twins – also boys. All of which went to prove that the squaw on the hippotamus was equal to the sum of the squaws on the other two hides.”
*Before it fades too easily from the memory, Keith Nicholson highlights a remarkable fact from last week’s England v Denmark game – both goalies had played for Darlington. Kaspar Schmeichel has four games on loan from Man City in 2006; Jordan Pickford, borrowed from Sunderland, had 17 games for the Quakers in 2012
*Chris Snowdon, to whom thanks, draws attention to a social media thread headed “Can you name a TV programme that you only saw in black and white?”
Many and monochrome are the nominations, ranging from Dixon of Dock Green to Four Feather Falls and from Peyton Place to Champion the Wonder Horse.
That to which Chris draws particular attention, however, is from Peter Dunne: “Tottenham Hotspur winning the league.”
Much – much – more about Tottenham tomorrow.
Grass Routes 