Lives in Cricket No 10 - John Shepherd

innings and he also delivered seven scores of fifty or more. Two of the half-centuries were in the same match versus his favourite opponents Middlesex at Uxbridge where he top-scored in both innings and almost single-handedly set up an improbable win. On 9 July 1984 John Shepherd was playing in a Sunday League match against Yorkshire at Scarborough along with his protégé of Caribbean origins, David ‘Syd’ Lawrence. Sections of the 10,000 crowd subjected the two of them to continuous racial abuse, chanting ‘Sieg Heil’, giving National Front salutes and hurling oranges and bananas onto the outfield. David Graveney, the Gloucestershire captain, said at the time that ‘the root of what happened yesterday was drink’ and that those carrying out the drunken abuse were not a mindless minority but ‘ … much more than a minority’. Yorkshire County Cricket Club apologised formally and Shepherd, who said that he ‘had played all over the world and had never met such aggression from a crowd before’, 155 received dozens of letters of apology and support from across Yorkshire and beyond. 1985 and later At the end of 1984 Gloucestershire offered John Shepherd a new three-year contract which was to involve him increasingly in coaching. It was financially a fairly generous offer with a basic salary of £7,500 and a further £4,000 for his ‘coaching duties’. Gloucestershire had recognised that Shep was a natural coach – although at the time he had no formal coaching qualifications. His allround track record as a player – by then he had played in 421 first-class matches, 13,353 runs and 1,155 wickets – was unrivalled and he was also still one of the country’s leading practitioners in the one-day game. He was an effective communicator, especially with young players with whom he had an easy rapport. The young fast bowler David Lawrence had been particularly under Shepherd’s wing in 1984 and his progress had been marked. In 1985 Shepherd played a handful of mostly one-day first-team games in the early season before concentrating on his coaching role – this included captaining the Second Eleven, a task he continued with in 1986 and 1987. He recalls that one of the reasons that he put a considerable effort into the seconds and the mostly young players in that squad was that he found the Gloucestershire captain David Graveney rather unwilling to have him performing a hands-on coaching role with the first-team players, even though Shep had been officially designated as ‘Senior Coach’ at the beginning of the year. The rather prickly Graveney jealously guarded his position of authority as club captain and Shepherd opted not to take him on. The Shepherd family was now complete with the arrival of a son, David, in 1983 to join his sisters Caroline, born 1976, and Jacqueline, born 1978. The Third Innings 113 155 The Times , 10 July 1984.