Watching Somerset since the Forties
The First Eight Years – Trial by Loyalty
It was in the final days of August 1949 that I made my first visit to the County Ground and as I was only six at the time I fully expect to enjoy a few more decades of regular agony and occasional ecstasy. My loyalty remains that of a man to a fickle and unreliable mistress, whose charms and delights will always outweigh the lapses and disappointments to which she subjects me... The opening words of Wisden on Somerset that summer of 1949 say it all: Mercurial Somerset, with strange cycles of victory and defeat, maintained their reputation as “The Team of Surprises”… Has anything actually changed?
That first match for me, against Warwickshire, was the last of the season. Somerset lost by 130 runs (after having won four, including all three at the Weston Festival, and drawn two of its previous six matches) and thus was I well prepared for the years to come. Foolishly I spent too much of the match playing with my two older brothers in the then uncovered stream beside the organ works, mindless of the perils of paddling in water that was almost certainly supplemented by fluids from the public conveniences a few yards away. Thus, I probably did not sufficiently appreciate the fine bowling of Lawrence – eleven wickets in the match – or the batting of the schoolmasterly August saviours, M M Walford and H E Watts, who jointly scored 214 of Somerset’s combined total of 438. But I can recall almost without prompting the names of that most distinguished side, most of them firmly ensconced in the pantheon of Somerset immortals, Gimblett and Walford, Watts, Buse, Woodhouse and Tremlett, Stephenson and Rogers, Wellard and Hazell. Is it bias or would a Warwickshire supporter agree that their team contained fewer famous servants of that county? (Gardner, Thompson, Townsend, Ord, Dollery, Wolton, Kardar, Spooner, Grove, Cannings. Hollies)
The following year we saw parts of two matches. The first was something of a family disaster. We set off from our home town of Glastonbury to Frome on the Saturday, but our ancient car boiled over while ascending the Mendips. My mother suffered a dreadful migraine, and when we at last reached the ground we found Freddie Brown, one of my father’s heroes, was not playing. Somerset batted well and actually won this match, though we were not there at the end. On the way home on that first evening, heading westwards into the sun, my father managed to clip the heels of a pedestrian fellow spectator. No serious damage was done but we were much delayed. Then near Shepton Mallet we collided head on with a motor-cyclist, again without disastrous results. That was enough of cricket in Frome for us, but, undaunted, a few days later we made a second visit to the County Ground, again to witness – from the river end – a defeat, this time at the hands of Yorkshire. The match ended with Yardley and Wardle scoring 92 in 38 minutes, and then everybody clapped. This I could not understand, for Somerset had lost heavily, but my mother told me that’s sportsmanship and one of the great lessons of life was absorbed by an unquestioning seven year old. Playing for Somerset in that match was one J Conibere. Now who on earth was he?
In 1951 we made the first of many family visits to the Weston Festival. Was this also the first time I remember seeing a very tall grey-flannelled schoolboy playing cricket at every available interval, as had now become our own family habit? John Cleese will probably admit to being there, as will Jeffrey Archer. We saw the first day of a match against Glamorgan reduced to two days; rain was always a familiar feature of Clarence Park in those days. Gimblett scored 78 out of 178, but we were not there the next day when Glamorgan chasing 144 were 32 for 8 as the extra half hour began, but they lost only one more wicket. We were back to see Gimblett score a century against Sussex, but not the win that followed two days later.
Four consecutive years at the bottom of the Championship started in 1952. The only victories that year were in the first two matches of the Bath Festival, which we didn’t attend. My father suggested opening a bottle of champagne after the second of these; ever cautious (and not yet a wine drinker), I proposed we should wait until three matches were won, and the bottle remained in the cellar. The high spot for us was Gimblett’s benefit match at Glastonbury. The first innings was an embarrassment, Somerset managed only 109, but Gimblett and Rogers both scored centuries in the second innings of a drawn match. I spent every minute of the match at the ground, some of them in the company of Lawrence and Miles, the sons of Gimblett and Lawrence respectively. Miles Lawrence was later to play for the county (I saw his very first innings against Surrey at Bath in 1959 when he scored 33, including eight fours!) and died aged only 48, while Lawrence Gimblett became a good friend. Through him I got to know his father, whom I remember as a kind, gentle and generous man. Several years later I spent a week-end with the Gimblett family in London, the particular treat being a visit to Covent Garden to see Lohengrin. It is unlikely that many people associate Harold Gimblett with grand opera, but he was an intelligent and sensitive man who loved classical music and was not content with the limited education he had received earlier in life. I was also thrilled when, as we drove around the Oval, Gimblett pointed out the spot on the Harleyford Road where one of his sixes had landed.
Back to August 1952, when Somerset snatched defeat from the jaws of what would have been the first victory that summer by a county side against the South Africans. In company with half the county we went to Taunton on the third day to observe the formality of Somerset scoring a mere 111 runs to win the match, but they managed only 86. Hugely galling was that Glamorgan defeated them in the very next match. Later that month it was Glamorgan again at Clarence Park, followed by Notts and Lancashire, with the rain coming first and Somerset last in all three encounters. This was the week of the tragic Lynmouth flood disaster. We saw all three days of the last match of the season against Hampshire. Apart from a dashing century by Tordoff, my chief memory of the match is the booing with which we signalled our discontent at a dreadfully slow innings by the Reverend JR Bridger, whom we decided to hate for ever thereafter. Lessons about sportsmanship clearly needed reviving – but it was a truly dreadful innings!
In 1953 at Bath, Bertie Buse’s Benefit Match ended in a single day, Maurice Tremlett was almost killed while fielding, and Brian Langford emerged at the age of only 17. But we saw no cricket until mid-July. My brother and I saw Northants bat all one Saturday and I think it was on this occasion I made a hugely ignorant remark about Johnny Lawrence being rather promising; he was 39 at the time. On Monday we had to go to school but my father was on holiday and we resented his luck in being able to watch Gimblett score yet another century. Then it was Glamorgan yet again at the seaside and the marvellous Walford scored a beautiful century in his first match of the season. A man of his talents but less dedicated to teaching would surely have played for England. By now we hated Wilf Wooller with parochial fervour and our feelings were hugely reinforced in the fourth innings. Glamorgan were set 302 to win and our bete noir firstly said he wasn’t ready after Lawrence bowled him and then took his team off at the beginning of the extra half hour, during which Somerset must have had a reasonable chance of taking the remaining four wickets. In the last match at Weston Somerset fielded only four full-time professionals. We were amazed to see the mysterious names of Collingwood and Fussell in the side and began to wonder whether we might get a game if we just turned up with some kit. The high spot of the season was the visit of the Australians to Taunton; they scored mightily in their only innings, but this match – attended by more people that I had ever previously seen en masse – saw the arrival of Yawar Saeed and Peter Wight, the latter scoring a wonderously wristy century when Somerset followed on. The first of the famous “foreign legion” had arrived.
