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

182 going to the nets, there was an occasion when he wanted to go to Elland Road to watch Leeds United versus Manchester United instead. He told me this was the only occasion when he argued with his father and in the end left his house with his cricket bag pretending to go to the nets. He caught the bus as usual but got off after one stop and left his kit at a friend’s house, went to the football and collected his kit after the match. He returned home still pretending he had been to the nets. Dad knew otherwise as he had rung Johnny to see if Kevin had been there. So when he did return to the nets in the following weeks there was certainly no recrimination but there was this character of a coach who could laugh with his otherwise dedicated pupil about this very one-off occurrence. “Being able to share one’s feelings which wasn’t always the case in the tough school of Yorkshire cricket was something I got from Johnny and I have tried to take that into my own coaching”, he told me. Stephen Lawrence After Miles’s cricket career failed at the highest level, family expectations were then to fall on youngest son Stephen who wasn’t born until 1959 and was thus much younger than his brothers and sisters. In the family tradition he also showed promise as a batsman and leg spin bowler. In the end he never made it to the first-class level but played for the second elevens of Northamptonshire, Gloucestershire and Somerset, and in the Minor Counties for Cheshire and Lincolnshire. After playing for Bilton in the Airedale and Wharfedale League he later played for Lightcliffe, Cleckheaton, East Bierley, Idle and Farsley in the Bradford League as well as having a short time away at Newcastle under Lyme. He has also played in the Huddersfield League and played for Hunslet Nelson in the Heavy Woollen League. He played for Dacre Banks in the Nidderdale League before moving to Heworth in the York Senior League. His pride and joy is the continuing development of young (and sometimes older) cricketers, very much in the tradition A few of his proteges