Lives in Cricket No 52 - Schooled in Cricket (2nd edition)

133 batsman in the history of the county and by far the most successful all-rounder. The Lincolnshire Echo relayed the announcement by the county club on March 17, 1958 that Johnny – via special MCC registration – had been appointed their professional – and that, as someone who had an advanced coaching certificate alongside the new skipper Jack Todd (similarly qualified) he would certainly be contributing to the coaching. In his very first game for Lincolnshire it must have been to Johnny’s delight that the opponents were Yorkshire Seconds (who in those days were one of a number of first- class county second elevens who competed in the Minor Counties Championship). This away match was played at the playing fields, Saltaire, on June 2 and 3, 1958. It was a severely weather-affected drawn match but in the only completed innings Yorkshire were bowled out for 162. Johnny would have been yet more delighted in taking five wickets for 42 including getting his good friends and tutees Jack Birkenshaw and Don Wilson both out stumped by Ron Beeson. Another future England player, Phil Sharpe, who made 41 was out caught Beeson bowled Johnny Lawrence. Two years later Lincolnshire were to secure their first victory over Yorkshire Seconds since 1914. The match at Shaw Lane, Barnsley featured Johnny scoring 94 in the first innings – though this time he was out in both innings to the bowling of Jack Birkenshaw. He only managed one wicket in that first innings but sensationally finished the match off with 4.3 overs, five wickets for 22 including the key wicket of Ted Lester caught behind for 49 as Lincolnshire won by 11 runs. Johnny’s highest score for Lincolnshire was 99 against Norfolk at the Lindum, Lincoln on July 26 and 27, 1961. Both teams were playing declaration cricket on a track too good for anything else and trying to get a result. Typically Johnny forced the pace in the second innings and reached 99 and then, without a thought for his hundred, tried to get a single to retain the strike. He was thus run out one short The Lincolnshire link – a further decade in a different form of county cricket