Lives in Cricket No 47 - Brian Sellers

60 Off the field Whatever Sellers meant, the name ‘crackerjack’ fitted him and his team. If he was hinting at craziness, it was for a reason; a team had to stand out from normal people, to come first. Much of the evidence of Sellers as an off the field character came when he had a pint in hand. He recalled in old age: …. we met the other players, knew the opposition lads. And I got to know those that could take their ale like men and do their stuff; others who had a few and wouldn’t be able to do much before lunch because they couldn’t take it like men. You know, when you bend down you see stars, that stuff. So I would say to them, ‘OK we’ve all done it. So steady on.’ Never had any trouble. In an age when we frown on drinking in working hours and driving when drunk, it’s significant that Sellers – who threatened to drop Bowes for not taking wickets fast enough – condoned men who, at least sometimes, were hung over the next morning. Also significant is this idea of being ‘like men’; to drink beer was masculine. Police caught Ellis Robinson in 1947 driving home, so drunk he could hardly stand; we might wonder how many more cricketers did the same, and how often. By having a drink after play, you belonged; but just as there was a limit to how much a man could stomach, there was a limit to how much noncomformity Sellers could stomach. In his 1987 autobiography, Boycott told of ‘an incident’ after he made 126 not out against Cumberland at Gargrave, in front of Sellers. It was Wednesday evening, 23 May 1963. Boycott was 21: We went into a pub and Sellers offered to buy a round. When it came to my turn and I told him I would like an orange juice he snorted with contempt. ‘You can buy your own bloody orange juice. Fancy drinking orange juice …’ I didn’t know Sellers well at the time, though his power at Yorkshire was legendary and he was obviously a man used to giving orders and having his own way. There was no need for him to try and belittle a young man who quite simply did not like the taste of beer. I felt small and humiliated. In 2014, Boycott told a similar story, and sounded more understanding: ‘That was the culture. Brian was not a bad man but he thought if you had a drink it would solve everything. It was a very macho approach.’ That the older Boycott used the term ‘culture’ is a sign of how we are analysing sport ever more, treating sport as an occupation like any other, teams as organisations, and fields of play as workplaces. A risk is always that we load our perspective on the past, when men did not think in ways we do. Another is that we forget, or deride, what was once normal. In 1962, and when Sellers began with Yorkshire 30 years before, talk after work ‘over a pint’ among workmates was normal, and not only among cricketers. Yet not everyone does what’s normal. In old age Sellers said: ‘Some of the lads, of course, forever tripping the light fantastic, others went to a film, others they’d all join up together and talk – cricket.’ Sellers had evidently forgotten by Boycott’s time that not everyone had chosen to stand at the bar, and they had been free to do other things. The tragedy for Yorkshire cricket, after Sellers hurt Boycott, was manifold: why did Sellers not allow