History of Bucks CCC

time a competition record, but Middlesex won by 99 runs. Later in the season York recorded his only championship century with 118 not out at Hertford. There were 802 runs for Gwynne Jones and 49 wickets for Hutchison, but Turner and Mackintosh had a thin time with the bat and injuries and lack of availability conspired to reduce a potentially strong side to a disappointing twelfth place in the table. The North Circular team: Brian Poll and David Smith 1975 had been the first season without the steadiness of Chris Parry’s off spin, but he continued to be involved with Bucks’ affairs, serving on the committee for six years. One of the first to be recruited from London club cricket, he had been instrumental in enlisting a number of others such as Champniss, who played club cricket for Northwood but whose teams were listed in successive yearbooks as Privateers, Stoics, Harrow Wanderers and MCC, Gwynne Jones, who played for Wanstead and Stoics, and Ron Hooker, whose club cricket was for South Hampstead. All gave valuable service to Bucks, but others were called up whose credentials were less clear or who failed to live up to prior reputations. As the years passed an ever growing stream of such players, first called the North Circular Eleven and later dubbed ‘the M25 lot’, claimed places in the county team, few of them owing any allegiance to Bucks. “Paul and Horace were naughty, really,” Chris Parry now feels, “there were far too many special registrations.” Around the clubs in Bucks there were many who would have agreed. The fuse of discontent had already been lit, but the explosion was still more than ten years away. After just two years David Mackintosh gave way to Brian Poll. Established as the wicket-keeper and a useful lower order batsman, Poll’s career with Bucks had begun after he had joined the High Wycombe club while on the staff at the Royal Grammar School. Universally liked, Poll engendered a good spirit in the team, but by the time he had become captain he was teaching at Ellesmere College in Shropshire and had become a little remote from the local club circuit, and some players felt that he became over reliant on Perrin to assemble teams. The 1976 season, Poll’s first in charge, was a time of change. Hutchison had returned to New Zealand, Lever’s fine career was drawing to a close, Jones, now a professional with Middleton, managed only four matches and was out of form and Hooker was fading out, but these losses were balanced by the arrival of new players. Ray Bailey, once of Northants, had played a few matches in 1975 and another opening bowler, Peter Gooch, briefly with Lancashire, now joined him. With Ray Bond still on hand there was a formidable pace attack, to which Gooch’s aggressive demeanour gave a cutting edge. Gooch also had the ability to switch from pace to off cutters, while for just this one season the county could call on a class spinner. Eric Gillott, a slow left-armer, who had toured England with the New Zealanders in 1973, played in every match of a long, hot summer that belonged to batsmen and emerged as chief wicket taker. ‘Rowdy’ one colleague remembers Gillott being called – because he hardly spoke a word! For some years the Slough batsman and future county captain David Smith had been unable to 82 The North Circular team: Brian Poll and David Smith Wilf Slack