feature Mike’s epic survey is not just cricket They said he was mad, but when it comes to sporting stats and historical detective work you can count on Mike Davage to confound expectations, as Steve Snelling discovered when he met the man behind a sporting tour de force.

ike Davage’s brain into a relentless quest that now spans is working overtime. more than 35 years and shows no sign of Straying from the letting up. boundaries of his latest In that time the 65-year-old retired grand sporting obsession assistant vice-president of an American he indulges in a spot insurance company from Old Catton has Mof mind games as a cricketing odyssey produced, in the award-winning Canary takes a googly-like detour into party trick Citizens and Glorious Canaries, two of the territory. most important and influential sporting “Give me a number,” he prompts, in the reference works ever published as well as manner of a conjurer about to perform a providing numberless ‘assists’ to myriad piece of magic. Momentarily by football club historians the length and this unexpected request, I spit out “25”. breadth of the country. “No, too easy,” he groans. So, I try again, Now, some 16 years after his last my befuddled brain clunking to keep pace. monumental study, he has followed up as I do I thought why not produce a deluxe compiling cricket records as opposed to “How about 37?” And suddenly he’s off. with another ground-breaking work that book covering the history of the county football records is an absolute nightmare Multiplying and dividing quicker than completes a rare and possibly unique club in as much detail as possible and get of checking and cross-checking. What I you can say pocket calculator and with an hat-trick of sporting histories and sees it out there.” like to do is put flesh on to the bare bones unerring accuracy that would do credit to him switching from football to cricket to He makes no bones about wanting to of a player’s name and statistics. That is the smartest computer. deliver what promises to be the definitive I wanted write a biographical history that would always the challenge and the most exciting His awesome display of mental ‘Who’s Who’ of Norfolk County Cricket “outclass” anything that had gone before part of something like this.” arithmetic over, he barely draws breath Club over the past 135 years. the book to and was likely to come in the future. It was The book’s quirky title - a typical Davage- before explaining: “It’s what I do. I don’t Why the change of direction? Well, in a characteristically ambitious objective style reference to the distinguished and even have to think. I’m not as sharp as part it reflects a growing disenchantment be far more which has been triumphantly fulfilled. distinguishing character of so many I used to be. But I can just do it. Figures with modern football but, as I soon The magnificent result of 2½ years of of the county’s players down the years aren’t a strain on the brain.” discover, cricket has always been an than the hard slog, of 10-hour days spent surfing - underscores a determinedly personal Even when he’s not trying the numbers abiding passion for Norwich City’s internet sites, trawling through dusty focus on the men behind the stats based, keep coming, like a mathematical tick that greatest historian. facts and archives, yellowing newspapers and well- as ever, on painstaking research. refuses to go away. “My wife knows all “Cricket’s my first love,” says Mike. thumbed scorebooks, Knights in Whites, It was a gargantuan task made harder about it,” he says. “We’ll be sitting there “Baseball comes second with rugby third Major Men and Preachers and Teachers by his choice of historical starting point. watching the Trooping of the Colour and and Norwich City fourth. Football just figures. is a cricketing chronicle that defies “Everyone thought I was mad,” says Mike, she’ll suddenly say how many horses isn’t the same these days.” convention in style and content. with the kind of deadpan expression are there? She knows that without As a boy growing up on the south Almost as much a social history as it is a that suggests such comments are not thinking I’ve been mentally counting coast, he supported Hampshire and, sporting record, the book is, in many ways, uncommon. “I could have taken 1895 as along the line, counting how many when work took him to London, he a reflection of its idiosyncratic compiler the beginning which was when Norfolk rows and multiplying them. progressed to playing for Southend and his fascination for the eccentric and began playing Minor Counties cricket, “Or if we’re watching a western in the Essex Senior League. “That the extraordinary, the whimsical and the but I felt the correct place to start was on TV she’ll say, ‘how many was the highest level I reached,” downright wacky. 1876 because since that date the club has Indians have died?’ and I can he says. “Wasn’t good enough for “I didn’t want to go down the traditional enjoyed a continuous history even if all tell her straight away. It’s not a county. But I was lucky enough route,” explains Mike. “I wanted to present the matches played in the first 19 years case of having to concentrate. to come up against your Doug the statistics differently, to take account were friendlies.” My brain just registers that Insoles and your Trevor Baileys of such things as the number of balls Aided and abetted by a few like-minded way .” at the end of their careers. bowled - Norfolk were involved in four, souls, a ledger which had been compiled Welcome to the weird and They were then in their 50s five, six and eight-ball over games - and to by the late Bryan Stevens, a former EDP wonderful world of Mike and 60s and were still brilliant. add more details. Normally, averages list cricket correspondent and county player, Davage, historian and I remember Trevor Bailey highest score and best bowling without and the wonder of the worldwide web, he statistician par excellence playing for Westcliff and if he telling you who they were achieved duly embarked on his epic quest. and a walking, talking didn’t want to get out, he didn’t against. I wanted to put that right. And Of the 784 players who have appeared encyclopaedia of sporting get out. You couldn’t budge him then, there’s the problem that in olden for Norfolk since 1876, Mike succeeded in anecdote and analytical trivia. from the crease.” times there wasn’t proper analysis. tracking down the families of around 750, “It’s a kind of madness, I Research, coupled with a rare Maiden overs didn’t count, so I needed to sometimes in the strangest of locations. suppose,” he says, “what I fascination for sporting stats, differentiate between those figures where Mark Walton was a case in point. The call an insatiable madness for proved a seamless progression I had been able to find out the full stats former Norwich City goalkeeper features facts and figures.” Mad or not, when his playing days ended. But and those where I hadn’t. among a wonderfully eclectic mix of it’s certainly symptomatic of why the focus on Norfolk? “But more than anything, and I know substitute fielders who make entertaining an incurable fixation on the “Well, I moved up here in 1972 this will sound strange coming from me, I appearances in a ‘Curio Corner’. minutiae of sporting history that and have lived here ever since. It’s wanted the book to be about far more than “He came on for Carl Amos in 1993 has been successfully channelled a fabulous place and loving cricket facts and figures. Scorecards bore me and during a match against

 EDP Weekend n December 31, 2011 Norfolk CCC 1912: a pre-first world war line-up features some familiar county names – Gervase Birkbeck (sixth from left, back row), Robert Pilch (far right, front row) and future MP and county cricketing legend Michael Falcon (centre, front row). Birkbeck and another member of the team, Ralph Thurgar (fourth from left, back row) were killed in action on the same day while serving with the Norfolk Regiment at Gaza five years later.

Cricketing Canaries: Sandy Kennon (above left) and Terry Allcock are among a number of footballers who swapped shorts for whites in the summer season. Below: The former Norfolk crickt headquarters at Lakenham.

and held a superb boundary catch,” says Five times married, he was a decorated Tour de force: Mike. “But I wanted to check one or two bomber pilot with a reputation for hell- Sporting all- things, so I eventually got hold of him by raising that was entirely justified. rounder: Mike phoning the Mexican restaurant he runs “Anyone playing their first game would Davage, the in Aberdare!” be invited to the bar after a day’s play,” number-crunching The Welshman was merely one among says Mike. “It’d be drinks all round and at historian who has a long list of players who have enjoyed two or three in the morning when they’d charted the story craving, empire-building Cecil, who made neglected to tell of this fact, preferring parallel careers as Norwich City stagger to their beds. The difference being of Norwich City his Norfolk debut in 1876. Twenty years to keep him as a ‘toy boy’. It makes for a footballers and Norfolk County cricketers. that whereas most would wake up nursing and now turned his later, his participation in the ill-fated great aside that seems entirely in keeping Notable among them were two of the a sore head and a desire to stay in bed, Bill hand to Norfolk Jameson Raid aimed at overthrowing with the author’s sense of humour. Canaries’ memorable 1959 FA Cup giant would go out and get a ton. He had that County Cricket Boer control of the Transvaal resulted in Asked for his own favourites among the killing side - Terry Allcock, whose three special quality which meant that even as a Club. Far left: Bill him being sentenced to death – in the end nearly 800 entries and he plumps for a cricketing spells spanned 16 years, and pro-cricketer he always played for fun.” Edrich, a colourful he served only six months in jail before suitably intriguing mix that includes one South African-born Sandy Kennon, who More than that, he was also a member character on and being released. memorable “undesirable” whose off-the- played three matches in 1970. of Norfolk’s most celebrated cricketing off the cricket Then there was the hapless Owen field behaviour made Bill Edrich seem Yet, remarkable though their records dynasty. In all, no fewer than six members pitch. Leggett, a general’s son whose short life like a choirboy. were, their achievements were surpassed of the Edrich clan have represented included an 1878 appearance for Norfolk Maurice Cockburn was, by any by two other footballing cricketers: Thomas the county since Bill’s brother Edwin before his life was brought to a wretched standards, a “wrong ’un”. His only Norfolk Allsopp, the only man to play for both borrowed some kit to make his debut in a end eight years later outside a Californian appearance was in 1895, but his court Leicester City FC and Leicestershire CCC friendly match at Lakenham shortly after barber’s shop. The 34-year-old artist was appearances were numerous. Having as well as Norwich City FC and Norfolk the first world war. gunned down by a deranged man who had been court-martialled and cashiered from CCC, and the peerless Bob Collinson, who Yet for all their fame the Edrich boys just been released from an asylum where the army, he was imprisoned for bigamy, captained the pre-Canaries’ Norwich and were by no means alone in turning he had been sent for stabbing him some theft and obtaining (and subsequently achieved career-best bowling figures of 8 Norfolk cricket into a family affair. months earlier in a jealous rage. pawning) jewellery under false pretences. for 77 against the MCC in his first county Among the many names that have In a book crowded with colourful “Basically,” says Mike, “he lied about his season in 1901. become synonymous with the game at characters and rich in amusing anecdote name, his age, rank and marital status!” “Bob was a remarkable figure,” says county level are the Birkbecks, with Old any selection is, inevitably, subjective, Cockburn’s eventual fate remains Mike. “He was a chemist working at Etonian Henry leading the way in 1876, but I found myself drawn to the entries of unknown and, together with the Colman’s and when Norwich City went the Buxtons, the Colmans, the Cozens- two men – John Wood and John Fielding identities of some 17 substitute fielders, professional he refused and football’s loss Hardys, the Fellowes, the Hoares, the – who I knew and another who I had never is among the few biographical details to was cricket’s gain.” Pilchs, the Rought-Roughts and, in more met but rather wish I had. elude his net. As it is, this latest labour Most famous of all the club’s sporting recent times, the Thomas’. Basil Rought-Rought was one of three of sporting love has already grown out of all-rounders, however, was the late, And if early teams sometimes read like cricketing brothers to represent Norfolk all recognition from its original concept. great Bill Edrich, who made his Norfolk a roll-call of the region’s landed gentry, before the second world war. He also had “I ended up writing 50 per cent more than debut in 1932 and went on to clock up 39 more recent teams have, as the title of the dubious distinction – one he shared I budgeted for,” says Mike. But there are Test match appearances as a Middlesex Mike’s book suggests, been dominated by with John Wood – of playing in a stalag no regrets. “You only get one chance,” he player alongside the incomparable the presence of clergymen, soldiers and match as a prisoner of war. But the says, “so you’ve got to go all out and do while also turning out teachers. So much for the great and the thing that caught my eye in his entry the best you can.” for a number of Football League clubs good, but some of the most compelling had nothing to do with cricket. Towards including Tottenham Hotspur. characters have been bit-part players the end of the war, Basil was said to Knights in Whites, Major Men and Charismatic and courageous, in almost whose greatest claims to fame, or notoriety, have escaped into the arms of a “French Preachers and Teachers: The equal measure, Edrich epitomised what one came away from the game. farming woman” who took a fancy to him. Definitive Who’s Who of Norfolk CCC sportswriter has called “the particularly Men like Colonel Francis William So much so that when the war ended she 1876-2011, by Mike Davage, is £15.99. British breed of incurable scallywag”. Rhodes, CB, DSO, brother of diamond-

EDP Weekend n December 31, 2011