Lives in Cricket No 22 - Jack Mercer

133 A scorer’s lot companions in the scorebox, and he replied, ‘Ease him out gradually, or just send him to matches where old friends like Harry Sharp and myself can keep an eye on him.’ It was a generous offer and one which reflected the camaraderie between scorers, especially those who had been players themselves before swapping bat and ball for scorebook and pen. However, Ted’s offer was not required. Shortly afterwards, Jack walked into the club offices at Northampton, as always whistling away to himself in his cheerful manner, and requested to see the secretary. ‘I’ve decided to give it all up,’ he duly said, before explaining his reasons for standing down, including how the travelling all around the country was starting to become a burden. There was also the matter of the countless lifts in cars with young players whom he hardly knew, and who showed little interest in Jack’s tales of bygone days, whilst he was also finding it increasingly difficult to climb up the near-vertical staircase to the scorers’ position at Northampton. The pair spoke for a while and the outcome was that, for 1982, Bernard Clarke would score for the First Eleven, with Jack, who reached 89 just before the season started, scoring for the Seconds. 117 Jack’s scoring career with Northamptonshire’s first team had, by now, stretched to nineteen seasons and, even allowing for occasional absences, had taken in well over 400 first-class and 250 limited-overs games, the latter of course having a higher run-rate and greater frequency of incident than the former. The start of his scoring career coincided with the introduction of the Gillette Cup, but 1969 – fifty years after he had first stepped onto the field for Sussex – saw the start of the ‘John Player’s County League’ and 1972 the Benson and Hedges Cup. The Player League involved playing on Sundays and sometimes travelling in the middle of a Championship fixture, so that often, well into his eighties, Jack would be engaged seven days a week. Scoring was no sinecure for him, but it may explain those afternoon-session snoozes in quieter first-class fixtures. No doubt the endurance was compensated for, in part, when he was scorer in Northamptonshire’s successes in the 1976 Gillette Cup final and the delayed 1980 Benson final, both at Lord’s. He had, in his time, coached several players in the Gillette side. However, Jack didn’t much like returning to the reserves, especially as the Second Eleven circuit was full of even more new, young faces and a host of scorers who had not themselves played at county level. Matches were only rarely covered by reporters; often those who did turn up were cub journalists who knew little about the game. The facilities on outgrounds were often Spartan and Jack missed the cameraderie and comforts of First Eleven scoring. After a year and a bit, Jack finally called it a day. 117 There has been no systematic collection of detailed material about scorers in county cricket. I have, though, been unable to identify a scorer regularly undertaking the duties in the Championship older than Jack’s 88 years at the end of the 1981 season, so perhaps he established a record. Other octogenarian scorers have been Gilbert Ryde, who was 86 when he last scored for Derbyshire in 1970; Frank Culverwell at Glamorgan in 1981; Claude Lewis at Kent in 1988; Jim Sewter at Worcestershire in 1997, and Tony Weld, currently at Hampshire. Roger Laws scored for Essex Second XI aged 91.