Famous Cricketers No 60 - Ernest Tyldesley

Tribute from the late E.W.Swanton C.B.E. There being no cricketing contemporaries of Ernest Tyldesley still alive to pay tribute to him - the last two, Lionel Lister and Cyril Washbrook, having passed away during the latter stages of compiling this book - I turned, for a few words of personal remembrance, to the man who was possibly the last great cricket journalist to have seen Tyldesley play. At the time still contributing on an occasional basis to The Daily Telegraph , Mr Swanton very kindly consented to put together a few thoughts on Ernest Tyldesley the man; within six months “Jim” Swanton too had passed on and these few lines became a souvenir not only of a great player but of a legendary cricket writer as well: “I was a great admirer of Ernest’s and although I did not meet him many times his quality was clearly apparent on those occasions when I did after close of play at Old Trafford. My old friend of similar vintage was George Duckworth and I heard a good deal about Ernest from him including an account of the infamous match at Trent Bridge in 1934 which, against all expectations, Lancashire won. George told me that at the end of the match Ernest, most undemonstrative of men, threw the ball far away into the crowd. I would say that Ernest Tyldesley was a modest and delightful man and a great ornament of his profession. He well merited inclusion on the Lancashire committee and, I expect, would have become president if he had not lost his health. Yours sincerely, Jim Swanton” Footnote: The match Mr.Swanton referred to above was the Nottinghamshire v Lancashire game at Trent Bridge on June 16th-19th, 1934. This was one of three games that summer when the Notts bowlers Harold Larwood and particularly Bill Voce came in for tremendous criticism for the policy of “direct attack” bowling. The Lancashire secretary wrote to Nottinghamshire C.C.C. on June 21st stating that they would not be able to renew fixtures between the two counties in 1935. The upshot was that the Laws of Cricket were altered in November 1934 to outlaw this practice and Nottinghamshire subsequently relieved their captain, the controversial Arthur Carr, of his post. Tyldesley’s nephew Don Dean still remembers his uncle returning from that particular game with his body a mass of bruises sustained during his match-winning innings of 109. 4