Lives in Cricket No 48 - Maurice Leyland

163 In Memoriam Hilarem The following morning, Tuesday, January 3, the national newspapers got a look in. Alex Bannister, in the Daily Mail , wrote: I remember one bowler under the late Bill Woodfull telling me: ‘When you have five or six Poms out and see ‘Fatty’ Leyland coming to the wicket you wonder why you started the game.’His droll humour often came to his side’s rescue at critical moments. Indeed he was exactly the man for a crisis - dependable, brave, and a very fine player indeed. Yorkshire have never had a more loyal servant or a better-loved personality. “One cannot measure the richness of Maurice Leyland by gold and silver,” wrote Alan Thompson in the Daily Express : He was of a rare breed of men. Maurice died on Sunday in a Harrogate hospital but every man who ever met him, however briefly, still carries a bit of Leyland with him. A humorous story, perhaps a little advice, or some of the grit and fighting spirit that made Leyland great on the cricket field and admired off it. Short, squat, powerful, with forearms like a blacksmith, and the faded white rose of an old blue cap, sitting jauntily above a smiling red and round face is how I remember him, in the Bradford League during the war and in his last championship season. Then he stayed on to coach and there must be thousands of Yorkshire lads who never made the county grade, but who simply became better players simply because Maurice took an interest in each individually. Even if he thought it, which I doubt, he was not one of those older generation who kept ramming down the throats of youngsters the theory that cricket was better in his day. ‘There’s nowt wrong wi’ t’game,’ was his cheerful philosophy. Then, with a twinkle in his eye, he might add: ‘Nobbut thee…’ and spend half an hour correcting some faulty technique. Northerners know there was no malice or spite intended - the victims of these stories themselves delight in telling them.