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

53 Chapter Eight Wartime in the Bradford League In 1940 Windhill engaged the services of the all-time great West Indian all-rounder Learie Constantine. Presuming Windhill could not afford the cost of having the luxury of two established top professionals, this may explain why it was time for Johnny to move on again. He spent a year at Spen Victoria and then two years at Salts CC before settling in with Bingley for the next three seasons. Miles Coope was with him in all these wartime seasons. For all these clubs Johnny continued to be a successful all-rounder who was an equal to the many top stars who graced the Bradford League in this period. At this time there was from Yorkshire alone, Bill Bowes, Frank Smailes, Arthur Booth, and Horace Fisher in the bowling department alone among Johnny’s competitors. Wisden lists 39 players who appeared in the Bradford League in 1941 who had appeared in Tests and of course there were players who would go on to have Test careers after the war; besides which we can only speculate on the careers of those players who might have done, as their careers peaked during the war years. It is no wild exaggeration to include Johnny Lawrence amongst the serious candidates – as he was 35 after the war when his actual first-class career just started. So many county players were unable to play first-class cricket for their counties in the war years yet free to play some sort of cricket. So many of these players chose to move to Bradford (in both world wars) to the extent that Tony Barker has written a book Cricket’s Wartime Sanctuary: the First-class Flight to Bradford. Johnny performed well, if for him unspectacularly, with Spen Victoria in 1940. He did well with the ball and did have one score of 82 at Lightcliffe on August 3. His best bowling was a week later at Baildon Green with six for 35. In 1941 and 1942 Johnny spent two seasons at Salts in the