Weekes bat up for sale (20 May 1998)

Wednesday, May 20, 1998

Weekes bat up for sale

Lancashire Evening Telegraph

A PIECE of Lancashire League history goes under the hammer tomorrow when Sir Everton Weekes' record-breaking bat is placed up for auction in London.

The legendary West Indian batsman scored a then Lancashire League record of 1,518 runs with the Stuart Surridge bat which he had also used on his country's tour of England the previous summer.

The whereabouts of the famous blade has been something of a mystery in recent years but the Lancashire Evening Telegraph has tracked it down via Bacup and Barbados to a close freind of Weekes.

Former team-mate John Usher is the proud owner of the bat until it is sold at a sale of cricketing memorabilia at Phillips of London tomorrow. Usher came into the Bacup side when Weekes joined the club in 1949 and they struck up a friendship that still stands today.

After his record-breaking season, Weekes gave the bat to the club's caretaker of materials, a Mr Flood, who was like a father figure to Usher and passed the bat onto the then 21-year-old fast bowler the following summer.

Usher made a case for the bat and allowed Bacup to display it in the club's pavilion until 11 years ago when during renovations it was removed and left in a cellar.

It was then that Usher took the bat home again and following a suggestion from Weekes, who was photographed with the bat during a visit to Usher's Bacup home last summer, the autographed bat will pass onto new owners again tomorrow.

Weekes told me from his Barbados home last night that he had allowed Usher to have the bat but modestly played down his achievements with it. "I made a lot of runs with it but I don't know about a record," he said.

Usher and his wife Christine stayed with Weekes this winter to watch England's one-day game against the West Indies in Barbados.

And the former Bacup captain, who also had a spell as Great Harwood's professional in the Ribblesdale League, remembers with great affection Weekes' stay with the Lanehead club which extended from 1949 to 1958 with a couple of tours in between.

"We had a good side at Bacup then. I think Everton was the best there has ever been and the best I have seen by a mile," said Usher.

"I thought it was great then and thinking back it's like fanstasy island. I liken it to looking over the wall and seeing Pele playing for Bacup Borough."

Weekes' record has since twice been surpassed with Australian Peter Sleep making 1,621 runs for Rishton in the 1991 season.

And two summers ago South African Ben Johnson set a new mark of 1,718 for Colne.

Source :: Lancashire Evening Telegraph (https://www.reednews.co.uk/let/)