Lives in Cricket No 47 - Brian Sellers

116 his need to say something when he entered a room, even a shop: ‘You always knew he was there.’ Did he miss the applause from his years as captain, as he entered and left the field? Certainly Sellers as chairman used his power over the players. That made them wary. One of them, Bryan Stott, recalled in 2016 “the first time I had anything other than a ‘morning Mr Sellers’ or whatever”. Around 1953, he had Easter leave during his National Service, which meant he could attend the outside nets at Headingley. While he was fielding, ‘all of a sudden Brian Sellers appears next to me’: ‘Now then lad, you are in the air force.’ I said, ‘Yes Mr Sellers.’ He said, are you enjoying it? I said, well, you know, on and off, because we were getting used to square bashing. And chatting there and he was just asking me questions. Are you playing any cricket? We were hoping of course, most of the lads had played good cricket in the air force. We had a good liaison between the RAF and Yorkshire. These were the first words of any nature spoken and not many afterwards. But he was totally in charge. Stott was one of the 13 capped players, an unusually large number, for the 1962 season. A scene at the April nets became one of the most written- about in Yorkshire history: … we always used to have Brian Sellers give us a pep talk, he used to come into the dressing room before we started practice and said pull your fingers out and get this championship won. We were all waiting there; he comes into the dressing room, closes the door, he leant against it and looked around [Stott folded his arms as Sellers did], he says, ‘well, there’s 13 of you buggers here now, but there won’t be at the end of the season’. And walked out, no pep talk, no nothing. Out. I thought; everybody is looking around, hell fire, what is he on about? This is how he was. Bang, this was what he had decided. With those few words – the fewer, the more they sank in – Sellers was reminding all that 13 caps were too many, as it kept out new blood (never mind that the club was at fault for giving so many caps). Sellers was thinking of the overall playing health of the club, that the players, understandably selfish, could not. Sellers was making all 13 try harder. In his 1969 autobiography – when he was safely away from Yorkshire – Illingworth, another one of those 13, felt free to analyse the Yorkshire attitude. It was always ‘that you play better under pressure’. Some did, Illingworth agreed; ‘others need encouragement’. Observant man that he was, observant enough to make a long and successful second career in cricket management and broadcasting, Illingworth added that ‘this pressure from the top, the constant awareness that you mustn’t fail’ was, as far as he could tell at the time, particular to Yorkshire. Was it right? As Illingworth said, ‘a lot of disillusioned youngsters’ were joining other counties; and indeed men no longer young, such as him. In fairness to Sellers, he let the players know where they stood; would they rather have been in ignorance, or denial? Supply of talent at Yorkshire always had been much greater than the eleven places, raising the odds against making The Sixties