Podge Brodhurst

Podge Brodhurst secured a cricket Blue in 1939 after staying on an extra year at Cambridge to do so, with the high spot of his final year being 106 not out against a decent Yorkshire attack, which he followed with 111 against Leicestershire. In the Varsity match he made 34 and 45 in a losing cause. He went on to play five times for Gloucestershire later that summer. He narrowly missed a football Blue, playing in every match before being dropped for the game itself. In 1938-39 he took part in a combined Oxford and Cambridge cricket/football tour of the Caribbean, and in one match he dropped George Headley. "Hey man," a spectator yelled, "you've just dropped the world." In the war he served with the Royal Artillery, and at the siege of Tobruk he was seen carrying around a cricket bag and asking if anyone fancied a net. After the war he taught at Winchester and acted as the school's cricket master in three separate spells.
Martin Williamson

Podge Brodhurst's major cricket achievements were not as a player but as a nurturer of talent and father figure to boys at Winchester College. He was a housemaster for 17 years at the school that produced Douglas Jardine and among his many charges was the then Nawab of Pataudi, India's greatest captain. Podge had a soft spot for those who excelled at cricket, rackets and those who pushed the boundaries of discipline, as long as they didn't push too far. He won a Cambridge Blue for cricket and scored a hundred against a Yorkshire team containing Hedley Verity and Bill Bowes. He played half a dozen games for Gloucestershire either side of the war, which he spent commanding anti-aircraft units in the North African desert. He returned to Winchester in 1946, married Meg Altham - daughter of the administrator and author Harry Altham - and became one of the college's best-loved figures. He remained ever-present at the school long after his retirement, watching sport and offering a kindly word to all boys both past and present. His wife Meg survives him.
Ed Craig, The Wisden Cricketer