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

143 had tea with his team-mates. He brought his own food but one day he had to join us because his son Miles, who also played in the team, had eaten his sandwiches. Poor Miles, his dad didn’t speak to him for three weeks.” Stephen Lawrence refutes that his dad would have acted so sternly with Miles but it certainly was an occasion of minor note! Brian found this event exceedingly humorous and was still laughing about it years later when I spoke to him. He probably didn’t realise that what he calls Johnny’s ‘eccentricity’ was at least in part his attempt to have a healthy diet, which by his definition would invariably mean having food specially prepared for him by his dear wife, Mary. Wet weather in May 1968 played havoc with the fixtures and in between there were some indifferent team performances. Johnny didn’t make his mark till June 1, when six for 32 at Saltaire enabled his team to grab their first win of the season. It wasn’t until July when Johnny scored 53 and took two for 20 that a second win was recorded, this time against one of the top teams, Idle. Until mid-August East Bierley had only these two wins to their credit and looked strong candidates for relegation. On August 17 a rally of wins started. It was only on September 7 that East Bierley were safe from relegation. They clearly could not have survived without Johnny’s bowling. His 54 wickets for the season came at 14.07 apiece and this placed him 15th in the league averages. Among Johnny’s opponents in 1968 was the Undercliffe opening bat and future Derbyshire professional, Ashley Harvey-Walker. It is interesting that he reversed his stance while a couple of balls from Johnny were in mid-flight much to the amusement of the crowd. In those days such an event would have been quite a rarity. But he had done it in seriousness though on the spur of the moment and it proved a successful tactic at the time and he told the Telegraph and Argus reporter afterwards that he’d do it again under similar circumstances. Harvey-Walker had a Seven more successful seasons in league cricket