Lives in Cricket No 10 - John Shepherd

family had established themselves comfortably in a pleasant house in the Gloucestershire market town of Chipping Sodbury. The three-year contract offered John by the county allowed them at least to plan a few years ahead, although as he had found to his cost once before, there were no certainties in the world of cricket employment. Over the next few years he threw himself enthusiastically into his coaching task and there was to be an immediate payback for his work with Syd Lawrence who took 79 first-class wickets in 1985 and, together with the county’s inspired overseas player signings of Courtney Walsh and Kevin Curran, helped the county to rise to third place in the County Championship. The club was evidently pleased with Shepherd’s contribution as coach and extended his contract for a fourth year up to the end of the 1988 season. Towards the end of the 1987 season Gloucestershire had ‘enough injured players to keep a sports injuries clinic working full time’ 156 and an emergency call went out to Shepherd, at the age of 43, to play in two Sunday League matches and one Championship game. In one of the Sunday games Shep helped Gloucestershire to beat Nottinghamshire, taking the wickets of Test players Tim Robinson and Clive Rice in the process. The Championship match, the last first-class match of John Shepherd’s career, started on 9 September 1987, over twenty-two years since his first in February 1965, was at Grace Road, Leicester. Shepherd took two wickets in Leicestershire’s first innings, Potter and DeFreitas, as well as catches to dismiss Peter Willey and David Gower. His final efforts with the bat were less distinguished – out for five in the first innings and bowled for one by Leslie Taylor in the second. Whilst John Shepherd’s professional cricket career continued to run smoothly through the 1980s, sadly at home things were beginning to be desperately difficult. Terry Shepherd had been suffering from ill health for some years and despite a series of tests doctors had failed to diagnose the cause of her problem. In 1987 John and Terry took the decision to move the family back to Kent where Terry could be closer to old friends and also to the Canterbury hospital where she had worked as a nurse for many years. They bought a house in Beltinge, a suburb of Herne Bay, on the north Kent coast. During the cricket season John made use of a small flat in Nevil Road, Bristol owned by the club – for a very close-knit family this was very disruptive but worse was to follow. In 1989 Shep had been offered a further two-year contract as Senior Coach, although they had turned down his request for a benefit or a testimonial which he thought he was due after seven years’ service as player and coach. The club was, however, concerned that Shepherd’s difficult personal circumstances would interfere with his ability fully to fulfil his role and asked for a commitment from him that he would be ‘here in Bristol on a full-time basis in the summer and this includes weekends’. 157 In April 1989, just as the cricket season was 114 Third Innings 156 Geoffrey Wheeler, in Wisden , 1988. 157 Letter to John Shepherd from Gloucestershire CCC secretary, Philip August, on 17 January 1989.