Lives in Cricket No 15 - Michael Falcon

be remembered for his bowling at Eastbourne in 1921, if nothing else. Oddly enough, even there errors are creeping into the literature about his deeds; one Australian source describes the then 33-year-old as ‘a young swing bowler’ whilst another gets it horribly wrong, stating that ‘21-year-old Falcon would renounce first-class cricket in favour of a House of Commons seat’. Let us give the last words on Michael Falcon to the Eastern Daily Press and to his team-mate at Eastbourne, Sir Hubert Ashton. The Eastern Daily Press , in a leader headed ‘Corinthian’ stated: ‘Michael Falcon provided his own shining page in the history of this golden game. His public attributes were manifold … . In cricketing terms it is difficult to say more than that he was Norfolk, playing it and caring for it for more than 70 years … . He was perhaps our last link with cricket’s golden age of the Corinthian amateur. Certainly we shall never see his like again.’ Sir Hubert, also a Conservative MP, wrote in The Cricketer : ‘Michael Falcon, who died on February 27, aged 87, was one of a long line of Michael Falcons and no doubt the most famous of them all as he was distinguished and outstanding in so many fields: a great public administrator, a devoted servant of the county of Norfolk, Michael Falcon’s Legacy 129 A curiosity. This undertaker in City Road, Norwich, occupies premises named after Michael Falcon. A modest building not particularly worthy of the great cricketer, but perhaps better than no tribute at all.