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

142 East Bierley 1968-1969 In 1968 Johnny Lawrence returns to the Bradford League for the next two seasons – to division one side, East Bierley – and his colleague there Brian Lymbery has a few recollections of memorable batting feats by Johnny who he always thought of as a bowler, pure and simple who was only occasionally useful with the bat. Johnny was joined at East Bierley by eldest son Miles. Brian Lymbery picks Johnny as one of a top ten of players who had the biggest influence on him. Lymbery goes on to comment: “Johnny Lawrence was an altogether different character [to the tearaway fast bowler Roy Gilchrist who was also in Lymbery’s top ten] . He was the former Somerset leg spinner who ran a cricket school at Rothwell where Yorkshire and England star Geoff Boycott honed his skills. “When he came on to bowl for East Bierley things started to happen. He was the best bowler of his type in the league, and that says a lot as my pal David Batty enjoyed great success and took a record 2,000 Bradford League and Cup wickets. “I can remember painfully one occasion when things didn’t happen for Johnny. I was keeping wicket to him at Lightcliffe and we agreed that he would put his left hand up when he was going to bowl wide of off stump to try and get a stumping. I saw the signal. I also saw the ball coming down and in a blur I whipped off the bails and yelled my appeal, only to see Johnny pointing to the boundary. I had missed the ball completely and it had gone for four byes. [It seems incredible that a wicket-keeper would not know that the hard and weighty cricket ball was not in his hands but – especially with anything concerning cricket – truth is often stranger than fiction.] “Thankfully, I went on to get a lot of victims from his bowling and it was a good experience keeping to a leg spinner who could turn the ball so much. Johnny was a class act but he was also eccentric. “He always came to matches in a camper van and never Seven more successful seasons in league cricket