Lives in Cricket No 10 - John Shepherd

rewarded 101 for their month’s work – but banned from international cricket for three years by the England cricket authorities. In August 1982 John Shepherd was contacted by Bev Walker, of Limelight Management, a sports agent based in England, to ask whether he would be interested in being ‘manager/player’ on a planned rebel West Indies tour to South Africa to take place in early 1983. The suggestion was that this offer was a sort of belated ‘thank you’ to Shepherd from the South African cricketing authorities for his involvement in the first series of private tours to South Africa between 1973 and 1976. Shepherd asked who would be going on the tour and was told that such players as Gordon Greenidge, Colin Croft, and others were in the frame. Shepherd was suspicious of this as he knew that all of the players named were currently active in West Indies cricket in the Test or one-day sides and he was, of course, also aware of the fatal consequences for their careers if they were to go on a rebel tour. Back in Barbados the story broke that a ‘rebel’ West Indies tour would soon be going to South Africa and that John Shepherd would be the manager. The London Daily Mail then reported that the series had been planned but fallen through because the West Indian players had asked too much. An article by Ian Wooldridge said that 16 players ‘ … including Colin Croft, Wayne Daniel, Alvin Kallicharran, Sylvester Clarke, Desmond Haynes, Hartley Alleyne, Collis King and John Shepherd, had agreed to play matches in South Africa in January and February 1983 for £130,000 a man’ 102 – a sum, he reported, ‘that had been rejected by the South African Breweries sponsor.’ Shepherd’s friend Joel Garner then phoned him to ask what was going on and to tell him that there was a big splash in the Bridgetown press that Shepherd was involved in organising a tour and recruiting players. Shepherd assured him that none of this was true. Shortly afterwards he was attending a reception in London at the Barbados High Commission in connection with a visit by a group of Barbados professional cricketers who were going to be playing a match at The Oval – an annual fixture. He had also been invited to play in the match, but was now told by those organising it that his services were not required – a response to the rumours from Barbados and an action that led Garry Sobers to say ‘if you don’t play I’m not playing’. It was all highly charged and political! In the end Shepherd didn’t play at The Oval but the offer to him firmly materialised when he received a contract from Bev Walker. The offer spelled out in the contract was extremely generous. In return for a little over one month’s work he would be paid £50,000 103 and there would be another tour in 1983 of similar duration for which he would be paid ‘ … not less than £55,000’. John Shepherd turned down this offer and looking back today, from the perspective of more than twenty-five years later, he is glad that he did. As a younger man, from 1973 to 1976, he had taken a Honorary White 81 101 Bob Woolmer revealed in his autobiography, Pirate and Rebel? , published in 1984, that he was paid £10,000. Wisden 1983 recorded that the scale of remuneration was £10,000 to £40,000. 102 Reported by Reg Hayter in The Cricketer , October 1982. 103 Roughly seven times his annual salary at Gloucestershire at the time.