Lives in Cricket No 3 - George Duckworth

lodged in the Edgbaston district. He played reasonably well at Warwickshire, ending with a batting average of 46, as well as keeping wicket with his now usual competence. His brief encounter with Warwickshire concluded at the end of that summer. The family version suggests he was offered further terms, but was dissatisfied with them, either because they were not so generous as those being offered to others, probably only one year, as opposed to two years. In an interview in 1986 with the journalist Alan Hare, George’s Lancastrian compadre, Len Hopwood threw a personal slant on the matter, presumably having discussed the issue with his colleague. The incumbent Warwickshire wicket-keeper was ‘Tiger’ Smith, of England fame, and it was to him that George was entrusted and from whom he received his initial first-class coaching. Len Hopwood remarked, ‘not for nothing was he nicknamed “Tiger”. There wasn’t much sweet about his nature’. According to Len Hopwood, as relayed by Alan Hare, ‘the precocious newcomer didn’t commend himself to Smith, who made it clear that he had no intention of being disposed by this little upstart from Warrington.’ The stories are compatible enough in terms of the inner politics of cricket dressing and committee rooms, with the jealous veteran, fearful of his position, possibly reporting a little negatively, but forcefully and influentially, to his superiors, and the cocky apprentice, precociously assured, already much his own independent man. He returned to Warrington undismayed, and still exemplifying that characteristic bravura. Two rejects from among Warwickshire’s trialists accompanied him. George Duckworth knew well that the chief officer of the Warrington Police Force was a cricket buff. The pair, spurned by Warwickshire, found humble niches as constables in the local force as well as proud places in its cricket team. George Duckworth then successfully applied to the Lancashire authorities and was appointed to the staff in April 1923, just before his twenty-second birthday. He played in a trial match in which Archie MacLaren, aged 52, and Reggie Spooner, aged 43, participated, thereby welding a silver link in the chain of Lancashire greats. His chance came early. After a handful of second string and Manchester ‘Club and Ground’ fixtures, like the one that engaged Neville Cardus, he made his first-class debut for Lancashire against Gloucestershire on Saturday, 2 June of that The Cricket 23