Derbyshire Bowlers
ACS Book of the Week
Each week we spotlight a fascinating title from the vast collection catalogued in the Cricket Bibliography project, drawing on insightful (but not necessarily positive!) reviews from the archives of our journal. Today we bring you an unsigned review of John Shawcroft’s Derbyshire Bowlers, published by JH Hall & Sons in 1986.
This entertaining book, part of The Derbyshire Heritage series, focuses primarily on Derbyshire’s pace bowlers, beginning with John Paxton, the Ilkeston lacemaker whose round-arm speed wrought havoc against the traveling All England Elevens in the days before a formal county team existed. At that time itinerant elevens would take on motley outfits of eighteens and twenty-twos. John Platts saw his first-class debut—and career—marred when Nottinghamshire batsman George Summers was fatally injured by a “riser.” The county’s first real spearhead was left-armer William Mycroft, whose late start at the age of thirty-two remains unexplained. Mycroft once took seventeen wickets in a match—on the losing side!
William Cropper flitted briefly across the scene before dying after a soccer match from the effects of a kick to the stomach, while Frank Shacklock had a couple of good seasons before moving on and up to Nottinghamshire. Shacklock is mentioned as Conan Doyle’s inspiration for Detective Holmes’s first name, but that was more likely derived jointly from Shacklock and his Nottinghamshire teammate Sherwin. Mycroft, mentioned above, became Holmes’s brother.
George Davidson enjoyed a somewhat longer career, though this fine all-rounder was nearly snapped up on a residential qualification by Warwickshire. His career was cruelly curtailed by a fatal bout of pneumonia. The early years of the century saw the emergence of Warren and Bestwick—an eccentric duo from a mining area, both sometimes too friendly with John Barleycorn. Alcohol was certainly responsible for Bestwick’s arrest on an unlawful killing charge, as well as for Warren’s temporary destitution (which, strangely enough, goes unmentioned in this book). The latter’s partiality for whisky was probably the reason for his inability to maintain the consistency necessary for an extended Test career. His single appearance, however, was most impressive.
Bestwick, a man of immense strength and stamina, commenced mine work aged eleven, helping to establish the legend of a continuous production line from pit to pitch. Curiously, this tradition was never universal. The admittedly “mini” South Staffordshire coalfield bred top-class soccer players—a single street in the mining town of Hednesford was responsible for almost an entire team of First Division players in the 1920s and 1930s—but there were no cricketers among them. The policy of discrimination against miners in general, and South Staffordshire miners in particular, employed by the officials of the Staffordshire County Club, cannot have been encouraging to the aspiring cricketers of Tacaroo and Pye Green.
Jim Horsley from Melbourne performed well for a time, but Heanor’s Archie Ackroyd became better known locally as one of the few professionals in the Birmingham Works and Business Houses League. There was a brief hiatus in the late 1920s before the emergence of the splendid Bill Copson and the Popes, ushering in the club’s most successful era.
Post-war, Gladwin and Jackson formed one of the most effective opening pairs any county has possessed in recent times. They were followed by stalwarts such as Harold Rhodes, Mike Hendrick, and Derek Morgan—a popular import with the unlikely pedigree of Berkhamsted School and Muswell Hill. The county also saw the unfortunate Alan Ward, a bowler of fearsome pace but uncertain temperament, who became one of the few county cricketers ever to be dismissed from the field by his skipper.
Sadly, the supply has now dried up. First came the two “fat Freds”—Trueman from Yorkshire and Rumsey from London—while today’s cricketers hail from such diverse places as Jutland, Jamaica, Birmingham, and Dominica. But surely the county’s ability to produce top-class players is not entirely extinct? Perhaps this worthwhile offering will inspire a resurgence.
The Cricket Bibliography project, developed in conjunction with the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians, is a dedicated effort to catalog and preserve the vast literature of cricket history. This evolving resource brings together books, articles, and other written works, offering researchers, historians and enthusiasts a comprehensive reference to the game’s documented past. Explore it here!
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