Lives in Cricket No 3 - George Duckworth

Rugby League club, in the closing years of his life, beginning in 1961. He had one uncomfortable moment as a Lancashire committee member. This was in 1964, when the county were well and truly in the doldrums, and there sprang to the revolutionary fore, Cedric Rhoades, the Zapata of Lancashire’s political saga. At the Houldsworth Hall in September 1964, a resolution of no confidence in the committee was passed overwhelmingly by 656 to 48 votes. The rebellion rolled on. There were 29 candidates for the twelve committee seats and six Young Turks were elected. Cedric Rhoades became chairman. The aldermanic and reactionary blockage of vice-presidents with residual powers was abolished. George Duckworth had been deputed to put the committee case for the retention of this constitutional vestige and, despite his enduring popularity, he received something of a rough ride. That enduring popularity, however, saw him safely returned to the committee – and when the new regime began its modernisation programme and built four grand office blocks, Duckworth was very satisfactorily included with MacLaren, Statham and Washbrook as names for the buildings. It was a pleasing little tribute. He had also, in the interim, been made an honorary member of MCC in 1949. That complemented his other grand cricketing honour, his mention in dispatches as one of Wisden’s five Cricketers of the Year in 1928. George Duckworth loved travel, and, when on the move, his eyes were as cleanly skimmed as when he was keeping wicket. His wife, Bessie, claimed that ‘if they booked him first-class, he would go to the North Pole.’ During his playing days, he was regarded as Lancashire’s Thomas Cook; ‘he could always save twenty minutes of travelling time, even of it meant four changes of train.’ His daughter recorded how ‘I always gave father a copy of Bradshaw’s for Christmas; not that he needed it – he knew trains that weren’t even in the guide.’ One of her childhood delights was to be taken by her father to the banks of the Manchester Ship Canal. With his vast knowledge, he knew about flags, and there was threepence for his daughter each time she could recognise under which nation’s standard a ship was sailing. His niece, Ruth, the one who became a geography teacher, recollects with much pleasure, the animated conversations she held with her uncle on geographic matters during her student days. 58 The Legacy