SPECTATOR SPORT
Prime target
Frank Keating
WITHOUT ceremony, the new committee suddenly dropped Michael Parkinson's name from the World XI which played at Scarborough this year, even though the fes- tival brochure contains an article by Parky preening on the pleasures of having a team named after him. Apparently they are hop- ing to persuade Mr Major to be non-play- ing captain of 'a Prime Minister's XI' next year and, as Parkinson says, 'somehow the omission of my name from this year's pro- gramme will help the "delicate negotia- tions" going on at the moment'. Still, however snubbed now, Parky can look forward to enjoying the look on the committee's faces when, next September, Mr Kinnock breezily turns up to toss for innings. The Tyke burghers were not think- ing of boyos. Scarborough cricket has always fancied patronage, and a handle to its 'get-up' teams — from the festival's onlie begetter well over a century ago, C. I. 'Buns' Thorn- ton, the Etonian hitter who was born in Herefordshire; since when, offhand, there has been Lord Londesborough, 'Shrimp' Leveson-Gower, T. N. Pearce and, more recently, D.B. Close. Leveson-Gower's XIs were my boyhood vintage once I had persuaded my Pa that the fortnight's summer hol should only be taken in a first-class county, and not at Paignton, Barmouth, or Burnham Market. Graveney always seemed to make a century for me and the West Country at Scarbor- ough. But his was not the brutal style which could tonk one over that mountainous five- storey, Victorian terrace which lined one side of the lovely, rich green, seagull- squawking field. Thornton himself did it in 1877, hitting A. G. Steel, one of the 'inven- tors' of overarm spin, clean over the slate rooftops and into Trafalgar Square. Cec Pepper, the Australian serviceman who later became an umpire, did the same to Eric Hollies in 1946.
Maurice Leyland was reputed to have done it, but before he died in 1967 he poopoohed the very thought: 'Nay, lad, it just bounced up to rooftop ridge and scarce trickled o'er t'other side'. In 1953, I was ducking with the rest of the holiday throng when a young Australian, Richie Benaud, peppered the walls and the windows with a fusillade of 11 sixes off Tattersall and War- dle. But Richie never made Trafalgar Square. One morning, a year or two after that, Godfrey Evans was captaining the Players against the Gents. Bracing zephyrs were skimming in off North Marine Drive, tailor- made for Fred Trueman. But Godfrey also had the tyro tearaway, Frank Tyson, in his side, and told Fred to open at the Pavilion End. Trueman pulled rank: `If you think I'm going to bowl into a wind like this bugger after all the work I've done this season then you can bloody think again'.
`C'mon Fred, Frank should have the wind, 'cos he's faster...'
`He's only flamin' faster if he's bowling with this sodding gale behind his arse...'
Happy days. And over this week for another year. First of the 'name' patrons was Osbert Sitwell's grandad, of course. The budding aesthete would be dragged along unwillingly. Once the boy even fell asleep midst his deckchaired family: `I hurtled off the chair with a crash like a falling meteor. I shall never forget the sense of shame when I woke bruised and on the ground and realised by the wooden repartee of bat and ball, and by the expres- sions of shock and displeasure on the faces of my elder relatives, and attendants, the execrable taste of the manner in which I had failed them'.
Cheer up, Parky. At least you've had a few XIs named after you at Scarborough. Not bad for Barnsley. And more than Osbert Sitwell managed.
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