The 52

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 Roger Heavens on Tim Jones’s The 52: Worcestershire's Forgotten First Class Cricketers (2021).

This is one of those must-have books. To date, 576 players have represented Worcestershire at the first-class level but in 2005 the club decided to replace the awarding of a county cap with a numbered colours system. For an unfathomable reason they decided to base this on appearances in the County Championship. The consequence of this was that 52 were missed out and, as Mr Jones states in his Preface, were in danger of being air-brushed out of the Club’s history. This fine volume addresses that deficiency. Forty-five of these players made only one appearance for the county and most of the others no more than five. Fifteen went on to play for other teams but generally those were limited to few matches.

There are three notable exceptions to this fact: Louis Vorster who made 93 appearances for Transvaal teams, Simon Kimber (14 matches for Sussex and 16 for Natal), and Brian Barrett (29 appearances for Auckland and Northern Districts.) Guy Pawson played 26 first class matches, mostly for Oxford University, and is therefore another who was well qualified to be included in any list of Worcestershire players. Vorster was a very successful businessman in South Africa but unfortunately was the victim of robbery and died from three gunshot wounds at just 45 years of age. Some players were killed in the two World Wars but these, and Vorster, are treated with utmost respect and it makes you think about the frailties of life.

Probably the most notable of the players with only one match to their credit is Freddie Grisewood, who gained fame in the BBC’s Any Questions which he hosted for 25 years. There are other players worthy of mention but this reviewer leaves those for the reader to discover in this most worthwhile book. The detail is impressive with many unusual and previously unseen illustrations. It corrects many errors in previous Worcestershire volumes. There are testimonies from 16 of the 17 surviving players including John Chadd who also provides the Foreword. He was born in 1933 so is one of the oldest but that accolade would have gone to Dennis Good who died in June this year at the age of 95. Many readers will have copies of Robert Brooke and David Goodyear’s 1990 book (A Who’s Who of Worcestershire County Cricket Club) but this new volume with regard to the 52 players goes much further than any previous research. The detail is exceptional. Interestingly, there are only two new players who have appeared for the county in non-championship matches since 1990, both in 1996 (James Ralph and Amjad Mohammed who both made only one appearance).

The easiest way to get a copy of this excellent publication is to contact Mr Jones direct at timajones405@aol.com. Mr Jones is working on a second volume concerning players with only one championship appearance, which the historian should await with bated breath. A relation of David Cameron will emerge, whilst another was an escapee from Stalag Luft 3 who kept lookout in one of the Great Escape huts.