Lives in Cricket No 14 - Jack Bond

play for Bolton Wanderers. It was a reasonable standard.’ But his football was short-lived. Around this time Florence was expecting their first child, and she felt that Jack should face up to his family responsibilities and stop playing. ‘She said, “You’re a professional cricketer now. If you break your leg or get injured, that’s the end of that.”’ Rather reluctantly Jack obeyed and promptly burnt his boots. The following week a neighbour passed him a message. ‘He said, “You’ll never believe this, but a fellow from Wolverhampton Wanderers came looking for you last Saturday. I told him you’d stopped playing and burnt your boots!’ No longer an active player, Jack became an avid follower of Bolton Wanderers. With Florence and her father Albert in an Ariel sidecar, he would mount his BSA 600 side-valve motor bike and together they would ride up and down the country. ‘We always used to take two big blocks of wood to stand on. Not only did they make us higher than other people, but the concrete floors weren’t as cold when you were stood on the terraces.’ An industrial injury to Albert around 1960 brought some financial compensation and the family used the money to upgrade from the motor bike to their first car. In later years Jack would retain his passion for football, but as the fortunes of Bolton waned so he found a new team to support. His allegiance to Liverpool came about through getting to know Bob Paisley in the days before he succeeded Bill Shankly as the club’s manager. ‘Whenever Lancashire played at Aigburth and anyone was injured, Bob would come over and treat the lad. He was the physio – well he was a rubber really, but that’s what he called himself.’ The friendship blossomed and, when Jack became captain of Lancashire, the youngster who had stood on the wooden blocks was able to take a comfortable seat in the directors’ box. The main winter sport in which Jack participated was table tennis, a game he had first come across at the Methodist church. In his early teens he had gone down to watch the men’s matches. When the players took a break for a cup of tea and a plate of potato pie, Jack and other youngsters would take over the table. ‘It got to the stage where I was getting better than some of the men,’ he says, and soon he was playing for the men’s team on merit. In later life he played for Market Street Table Tennis Club in the Farnworth League and reached inter-league standard. ‘You’re a professional cricketer now’ 29