M Parkinson: England's unplayed ace (27 Jul 1998)

27 July 1998

England's unplayed ace

By Michael Parkinson

FRED TRUEMAN tells a lovely story about Les Jackson. During the 50s he was having a drink with Jimmy Gray, who opened the innings for Hampshire. On their northern tour Hampshire played Yorkshire, Lancashire and Derbyshire. Fred asked Jimmy how he was enjoying the trip. "What do you mean 'enjoying it'?" he said. "First I face you at Park Avenue, then Statham at Old Trafford and finally there's that mean bastard Jackson waiting at Burton-on-Trent and you want to know if I'm enjoying it".

An old friend, Mike Carey, sent me his book on Les Jackson. It is a wonderful whiff of past seasons when men like Jackson earned 12 quid a week in the summer and went back down the pit in the winter months. Jackson ought to have spent his winters playing cricket but he never found favour with either Freddie Brown or Gubby Allen. Brown was England's captain and Allen the chairman of selectors.

Their conviction there were better bowlers than Jackson was good news for England's enemies. Don Bradman, for instance, could never understand why Jackson was ignored. Ray Lindwall said that during their 1948 tour the Australian team thought he was one of the best bowlers they faced and were delighted when the selectors didn't pick him. Fred Trueman said he should have played in at least 30 Test matches and gone on four or five tours. As it was he played twice for England in a Test career spanning 12 years.

Why was he ignored? Dennis Brookes, who opened for Northants when Freddie Brown was captain, said he once asked him why. Brown said it was because Jackson couldn't come back for second or third spells. Brookes said: "He doesn't need to very often." Brookes believed, as did Trueman and one or two others at the time, that Jackson's slingy, round-arm action was frowned upon by purists like Brown and Allen. In those days what Gubby said became holy writ. Selectors turned up for meetings to be told by him what the team would be.

I imagine Les Jackson, who is still alive and well and who never moaned about his shabby treatment, will nonetheless allow himself a wry smile at the assessment of Allen as a player made by Bill Bowes. Both bowlers were on the infamous Bodyline tour and much was made of the fact that Allen refused to bowl in the intimidatory style ordered by his captain. Mike Carey reports he once asked Bowes about Allen's stance. Bowes replied: "Gubby Allen? He weren't accurate enough to bowl bodyline".

Derek Morgan, who captained Derbyshire in Jackson's time, makes the point that when considering Jackson's statistics - 1,670 wickets at 17.11 - you have to take into account the fact the game was played on uncovered wickets and the balance between bat and ball has changed. Nonetheless, he believes Jackson's accuracy was such he would play the modern game without conceding more than three runs an over. He was, says Morgan, "a superb bowler".

Today Les Jackson lives in a bungalow in his beloved Derbyshire. Mike Carey tells me he is tickled pink whenever he gets a mention. He was remembered afresh in the past week or so because of the death of his team-mate Alan Revill. I wrote last week that Revill thought Jackson was the best of the lot. "F S" he called him after the great Yorkshire and England all-rounder the Rt Hon Sir Frances Stanley Jackson.

Alan had a nickname for everyone. Tony Bampton, who played with Alan at Reading, recalls their opening bat Stan Stafford was christened by Alan "Fazal Staffood". Bampton, being a twin, was referred to as "Alec or Eric". Once after making a marvellous catch off his own bowling Revill turned to the umpire and said: "Caught Whitbread, bowled Tankard".

But Bampton remembers best of all a moment when a young player, believing he had been wronged by the umpire, threw his bat across the dressing room. Alan, who was having a quiet fag and studying the racing form, looked up and said: "Sonny, you are not good enough to be temperamental."

What the lad learned was anyone privileged to mix with the likes of Alan Revill and Les Jackson had better know how to bat on an uncovered wicket, both literally and figuratively speaking.

IN THE next few days I shall sit down with my fellow selectors and choose the teams to play on Sunday in the game commemorating the 200th birthday of Maidenhead and Bray Cricket Club. You will understand the difficulty of our task when I tell you we have to balance such diverse talents as Gary Lineker and Rolf Harris, Jimmy Tarbuck and Rob Andrew. Did David Graveney ever have such riches at his disposal as Jeremy Guscott, Mike Gatting, Rory Bremner and Chris Tarrant? (After this series I think three of them will go to Australia. Sadly the selectors think Gatting is too old.)

Did Gubby Allen ever have to accommodate players as miscellaneous as George Best, Kenny Lynch, Jeff Probyn, Robert Powell and Chris Cowdrey? Not on his nelly. Was any selector faced with a dressing room accommodating Mariella Fostrup, Penny Smith, Sheila Ferguson, Christopher Biggins, Carol Vorderman and yours truly? He should be so lucky.

Hopefully the sun will shine as it ought on a special day for one of the loveliest cricket grounds on the planet. We say it is 200 years old but we are being kind. George Dobell, who traced the history of the club for our anniversary, found the first mention of a team from Bray dated back to 1744. This was the same year as the first laws of the game were written and six years before the foundation of the Hambledon Club.

In the late 1700s a team from Maidenhead regularly took on MCC for money. The wager for one game was one thousand guineas. MCC lost and their players "retired in high dudgeon on hearing the bells of Bray Church sound their defeat and refused to take part of the excellent collation provided for them". On another occasion MCC failed to turn up, deeming it "proper to forfeit their money sooner than be shamefully beaten".

We have two perfectly preserved score books covering the period 1848 to 1860. In stylish copperplate it is recorded that in 1853 Maidenhead and District played an All England XI which included two of the most famous names in cricket - John Wisden and John Lilleywhite. In that game J Dean was at the wicket five hours for 17 runs. Those were the days of four-ball overs when runs were called "notches" and opponents "antagonists". The club's scorer also invented a new method of dismissal using "Nip't" or "Nipped himself out" to describe the batsman playing on. Or so we think.

We have a lot to celebrate this coming weekend. The club goes back to the very foundations of the game. Our privilege is to ensure the future. Sunday is a fun day. The following Tuesday we play MCC. I hope they turn up. Mark Nicholas is skippering the team and Barry Richards is included. Richards batting at Bray while the sun sets on the old church and the shadows lengthen is as good as it gets.

It might be special, but like any other cricket club it struggles to survive. Sometimes you wonder if it's worth it. Keeping it going. All the aggro. Then you look across the field, hear the 'Bray bells", see the ghosts and understand why.

Copies of Les Jackson, A Derbyshire Legend are available from Mike Carey (UKP 9.50 including postage and packing) at 5 The Square, Darley Abbey, Derby DE22 1DY.

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk)