Lives in Cricket No 47 - Brian Sellers

12 Chapter Two Sellers and son It is a safe thing to say that in no part of England is a greater interest taken in cricket, and nowhere is it followed with a keener critical appreciation than in Yorkshire. JS Fletcher, Picturesque History of Yorkshire in six volumes, volume V (1900) When Brian Sellers began for Yorkshire, some still remembered his father, such as a Nottingham Evening News reporter in July 1932, ‘and I was glad to learn he is still hale and hearty and follows the fortunes of his old team with unwavering interest’. Just as Sellers’ playing years took in the Edwardians Jack Hearne and Frank Woolley, and after the 1939-45 war Derek Shackleton and Tom Graveney who played into the 1960s, through his father Sellers connected to great Victorian names. His father was not quite one of them. In his 1924 memoirs, Yorkshire’s famous captain Lord Hawke called Arthur Sellars (sic) ‘a batsman whose career was all too short’. Arthur’s story began, at least in the records, on 26 April 1887, at a Tuesday evening committee meeting of Keighley Cricket Club in the long-gone Devonshire Hotel. Arthur, not quite 17, was one of seven new members elected. At the annual general meeting in November, Arthur was among 11 voted on to the committee; and in February 1888, appointed as one of the two joint secretaries. Arthur began the 1887 season opening the batting for the second team. By June – in front of 2000 spectators at Burnley – after the hosts made 320, leaving Keighley one hour to bat, Sellers went in after three wickets soon fell. With the professional Tom Jeeves he nearly saw out time. A fortnight later Arthur was top scorer with 29 not out of 90 for eight at Dewsbury. When in May 1888 Arthur again top scored with a ‘plucky and invaluable’ 27 out of 70 as Keighley beat local rivals Saltaire, the weekly Keighley News - while noting an ‘occasional tendency to hit out rashly’ - praised him for ‘fulfilling the predictions of those who last season nominated him as ‘the coming man’’. Days later Arthur batted and bowled as one of 22 colts that lost by an innings at Sheffield to the full Yorkshire side, including such Victorian names as Bobby Peel, George Ulyett and Lord Hawke. Arthur first played for Yorkshire in 1889 and most regularly in 1893, when he made two of the county’s three centuries and scored 1062 runs. Occasionally he captained the county; only, the family business took him away. He was rather, as his obituary in the Keighley News put it, a Saturday club cricket ‘giant’, ‘the idol of the crowd’. He made a record 11,779 runs for Keighley, and eight centuries, when hundreds in northern club cricket were rare. On