Famous Cricketers No 4 - F.E.Woolley

BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION To that generation of Kent cricket supporters whose most impressionable years were between the wars, there was only Frank Woolley. Not that they were wanting for a choice of heroes - Chapman, Ames, Freeman - but it was the tall elegant left-hander who holds a special place of affection. He could arouse Neville Cardus to his most lyrical heights and even today it is Woolley that commentators turn to for definitive comparison when talk is of left-handers. Few players played for as long and as effectively as Woolley. Only Jack Hobbs scored more runs. Yet it should not be forgotten that in his time he was also a top class slow left-arm bowler, while his total of over a thousand catches has never been or ever likely to be approached. However while the very length of his career gives his figures an impressive appearance, it would be true to say that he was not a prolific scorer in the fashion of Hobbs or Hammond. It was the manner he scored his runs. Time and time again it is reports of remarkable sixties or seventies rather than large hundreds that leave an impression on the mind of one studying his carer. Few players of note can have scored their runs at a greater pace and in a finer style. Frank Edward Woolley was born on 27 May 1887 at Tonbridge. His father was a pioneer in the infant motor industry running a garage and repair-shop in the town's High Street. Cricket was part of his existence from a very early age, with his three older brothers, one of whom, Claude, had a first-class career of some note with Northamptonshire. Two things were immediately apparent - firstly he was a natural left-hander, and secondly he had inherited from his mother that tall elegant bearing that so marked him as a player. Tonbridge was a significant cricketing location at this time. In 1897 the famed Nursery had been formed at the town's Angel Cricket Ground, just up the road from the Woolley business. Under the tutelage of Captain WilliamMcCanlis it was to provide the backbone of the Kent side of its golden age before 1914. One of the earliest, and certainly amongst its most distinguished graduates was Colin Blythe and it seems it was his whose eye the young Woolley caught, no doubt seeing in the young man a bowler of not dissimilar style. However it was his potential as a batsman that made a mark. He was taken onto the Kent staff in 1903. Woolley's debut for the Kent first team, ironically for the injured Blythe, has been well documented. As he once put it “I was bad in patches, but finished well” - nought, three dropped catches but top score in the second innings. Thereafter he maintained his place in the side through a succession of all-round performances, and although dropped to make way for one of Kent's proliferation of amateurs for Canterbury Week, that was the last time that fate befell him before he retired 32 years later. In that period he was synonymous with Kent cricket. Despite other notable names, it remains Woolley who is recalled first. The clue to Woolley's batting success was doubtless his height and great reach. He could make strokes in a wide range without obvious adjustment of feet or body. Unlike most modern counterparts he was always hitting the ball in the air. If it was pitched up he would hit it back over the bowler's head, so that he was never pinned down. Should he be so, Woolley always took a chance and either he hit the bowler off his length or he got out. Indeed the latter always looked likely. One has only to look at his record to see that the patient building of an innings was not his style. No player can surely match his remarkable record of dismissals in the nineties, and that not through nervousness. There are a host of innings to illustrate the point. His erstwhile partner in many innings the late Leslie Ames recalled a classic one at Bradford, his first confrontation with the great Hedley Verity. Coming in on a difficult wicket, with two wickets gone early, Woolley is reputed to have said to the great wicket-keeper-batsman “I don't know who this young fellow is, but I think I'd better get up that end and deal with him.” This he did in no uncertain manner, hitting Verity for three sixes in the next two overs, finishing up with 188 out of 296, leaving the Yorkshire bowler to rue over figures of 0 for 70 off 12 overs. Even in his final seasons with the Kent side seemingly prey to fast bowling his indifference to any type of pace found him at the age of 51 promoted to a very effective opener. 5