MY S(UP)PORTING LIFE

by Ivor Sorokin

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My Sporting memories can be delivered in two segments, spectating and playing. This is my supporting career, as far as I can remember.

At my grammar school, Wyggeston boys in Leicester, we played both cricket and rugby and were encouraged to support our local teams, Leicester Tigers for rugby and Leicestershire CCC for cricket.

We did of course have a good soccer team, Leicester City, but this was never recognised in the school.

However, I was a passionate fan of all three sports, even to the extent of waking at 3am to listen to the very crackly radio commentary of the 1946 test series.

The year 1948, when I was 14, was a most memorable one for cricket. The Aussies were over here for the test series, which they won 4-0, and Denis Compton and Bill Edrich, both who played for Middlesex, scored over 3000 runs.

In those days Grace Road, Leicestershire's home ground, was used by the schools in term-time, so immediately the school holidays started there were eight 3-day county games in a row over a period of four weeks.

I would arrive at 10.00 am prompt with my little blue case of kosher sandwiches (my Mother kept a strictly kosher home) and a bottle of dandelion and burdock.

I would start at the nets, to watch the teams warming up, and then pitch up at my normal seat, just behind the bowlers arm, take out my scoresheet and my ground diagram book for recording the directions of each batsman’s scoring shot, and I was settled for a blissful day.

 

Biro’s had just been invented and had become the traditional barmitzvah present, replacing the ink-based Parker 51, and ideal for scoring with.

I also managed to see several other games at Trent Bridge (Nottinghamshire) and County Ground (Derbyshire)
Famously I was able to see the first day of the final test match at the Oval, as my dear
cousins, Sammy and Muriel had recently got married, and their flat was close to the ground.

So I was there when Don Bradman played his final test innings of just two balls, being bowled for a duck by Eric Hollies. England were all out for just 52, with Len Hutton carrying his bat for 30 runs. I saw Ray Lindwall take 6 wickets for 20 runs and some classic batting from the young southpaw, Neil Harvey. And Arthur Morris scored 196 before being run out as he was so tired.

What an incredible day’s cricket!

They were such different days. I managed to travel in the team coach several times, and got to be known by the players as a sort of a mascot.
The players were so approachable, and I do remember watching Jack Walsh of
Leicestershire teaching Denis Compton how to bowl a chinaman in the nets (for the poorly-educated reader, it is a left handers googly-understand ?)

Compton was the original “Brylcream boy”, one of the first sportsmen to have a major
commercial contract. He would rub his hands through his Brylcreamed hair and shine up half of the ball, making it move through the air differently.

Team players were all so modest and real gentlemen. There was none of today’s performances with the ecstatic kissing and cuddling when a bowler gets a single wicket. I so remember watching Jim Laker on TV taking his NINETEENTH test wicket at Old Trafford in 1956 calmly shaking the odd hand and just walking off..

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May I divert for a moment? - I do remember that up to about 1962 there was an annual
fixture “Gentlemen vs Players”, the gentlemen being amateurs. Further, until about 1949 team captains had to be amateurs. I do believe that Les Berry of Leicestershire was the first professional county captain and Len Hutton was the first for England.

GThere were even separate dressing rooms (God forbid that amateurs might get tainted),
and amateurs had “Mr” in front of their names on the scorecards.

In 1948, Leicestershire were in trouble for an amateur captain, and they had to resort to bringing in a very ordinary club player, named William Pickering.

His first match was home against Derbyshire, finishing with our home team having to collect a massive 391 runs in 240 minutes which seemed impossible, especially as it was in the fourth innings. However, he scored 62 runs in a memorable partnership with Vic Jackson, contributing to a famous victory.

He came off in floods of tears, and even now, writing about it 71 years on, I admit to having tears in my eyes.

Soccer at Filbert Street and Rugger at Welford Read were conveniently played on alternate weeks so that fans of both always had a Saturday game to look forward to. My main soccer memory is of seeing a very young Don Revie doing wonders with a (leather) football.

In 1949 we reached the FA Cup final and I was there at every round. (We lost 3-1 to Wolves in the final).

I did not manage to buy a ticket for the fourth round home against Preston North End so I had to queue up on the day. On arriving at the ground at 7.30am I found that I was the only one in the queue apart from a very cold newspaper journalist who was waiting to interview the first one in line.

 

My name was printed in both local papers, as well as, most surprisingly, my full address.

In 1989 I won a Daily Mail “letter of the week”, the prize being a hotel weekend break, so I decided to visit Leicester and see some of my old haunts. I also visited the offices of a local newspaper, and managed to download the relevant front pages, which also, coincidentally, reported on Britain recognising Israel as a country.

I was doing two newspaper rounds at this time to pay for my outings. Things were very tough at home, and I received virtually no pocket money.

Late in 1949, my Father located a small shop in Brighton and we moved with just a week’s notice. I was terribly upset as, apart from having to learn a new syllabus for my imminent matric, as O-levels were named in those days, I would lose all of my friends, and, very sadly would also lose the traditional Christmas gifts from my paper rounds, which would amount to several pounds.

On coming to Brighton I tried very hard to transfer my allegiances, but to no avail, and that was the end of my fanships. In any case, I started to discover that I did prefer playing sports to spectating.

I watch the current TV soccer games with increasing horror and disgust at the contortions of the players when a goal is scored. Blatant cheating and professional fouls are the norm.

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Referees are hounded by the players and seem really terrified of them. Goal scorers jump off the pitch into their crowd of supporters arms. And for all this they are paid millions of pounds annually.

There can be no better way to close this blog of personal recollections than with a quote from Harold Pinter, himself a great cricket fan - “I saw Len Hutton in his prime-another time, another time”.

Ivor Sorokin, August 2019