LCS Meeting Thursday 21st November Our guest for the November Meeting John Barclay It came as no surprise to the 160 plus people who came along to Grace Rd, on a cold and blustery November night, that the loveable MAD HATTER that could only be, John Barclay, would give society members and guests attending, another fantastic evening’s entertainment, on his return visit to the LCS. It looks like John is asking Margaret, where’s the champagne that should be in these ice buckets? For new members of the society these are your committee (l to r) Steve Allan Robin Whait (treasurer) David Williamson Roger Stead (events sec) In Howards introduction, he ran through the very impressive career statistics of John, telling us, that John played for Sussex for 17 seasons, was club captain between 1981 and 1986, played in 247 matches, scored 9677 runs with nine centuries and 46 fifties, took 324 wickets with his right arm off spin, had 9 five wicket hauls and took 10 wickets in a match once, and to add to all that he held onto 214 catches. John’s reply to this list was, SAY NO MORE! Howard introduces our guest, with a list of his cricket career stats. I nicked this paragraph from the Arundel Castle Cricket Foundation Web site, as it give some background on John’s passion. The link below will take you to the site for more information. http://www.arundelcastlecricketfoundation.co.uk/johnbarclaybiography.html John has been a member of the MCC Committee and for five years chaired the E.C.B. Cricket Coaches Association. Today, he is Chairman of the Cricket Committee and the Sussex Cricket Board at Sussex County Cricket Club and President of the English Schools Cricket Association. The majority of his time, however, is spent at Arundel where he is Director of Cricket and Coaching for the Arundel Castle Cricket Foundation. He is able to give young people from all parts of the country, some of them disabled or partially sighted and most of them from inner city areas, the chance to broaden their education and enhance their lives through cricket and coaching. To date, more than 300,000 youngsters have benefited from the scheme. John listening to Howard’s introduction John in his familiar style of walking up and down and back and forward, at times he is difficult to keep an eye on. His first comment, in answer to Howard’s list of career stats was, I never knew I was that good. John started his talk by saying that he is normally not invited back to the same place twice, but we all know that this very modest and extremely funny man is always going to attract a lot of people whenever and wherever he speaks. Before the start of the meeting, John was talking to Howard about his last visit to our society, in the winter of 2006 / 07, he thought that this time gap had not been as long as seven years, but this year’s vintage of Barclay humour was as good as ever. Just before he started to speak, John wrote down a few headlines, of what he intended to talk about, 50 minutes later, he took a look at his list, and said, just one more thing I want to say before the break, by that time most of the audience needed a little while for their jaws to stop aching from the laughter that John always brings to his talks. The Friends of Grace Road, once again had their stall set up for our members to get some Leicestershire Cricket items for Christmas. During Howards opening words, he announced that the FOGR had made a donation of £12,000 to the county. That’s a lot of tea and cakes. Sylvia the lady in the second row, seated next to Barbara Harrington, came all the way from Sussex, Barbara told me, John Barclay is her friend’s hero. This winter the society as recruited 24 new members so there are some new comers to the family photos With another right hand batsman as speaker the crowd in cow corner had some of the best seats in the house for watching John’s talk, at least side on you don’t have to keep moving your head to follow the speaker. I want to thank Alan, Peter and the rest of the lads for always looking at these reports (or so they tell me) and still managing to have a smile on their faces John went on to talk about JK Lever, telling us that JK got him out more times than any other bowler in championship cricket. John on one of his many walkabouts during the course of the evening. at this time I think he was talking about Richard the third being found under a car park in Leicester. John in full flow, you can see Roger and Robin laughing. John spoke at length about the Leicestershire cricketers he played against during his career, just a couple of the players he spoke about. Raymond Illingworth and Jack Birkenshaw. John told a tale about Illingworth, the story went a little like this, John talking to Ray at a Yorkshire dinner, John says to Ray, you must have parked on top of King Richard when parking your car; living and playing in Leicester for all those years, the punch line was, that it was a free car park. Not as funny when written, but I think he was saying something about the generosity of Yorkshire men! John pointed to the back wall and the photo of Jack Birkenshaw and Jimmy Whitaker John told us that Jack Birkenshaw, was one of his favourite people in the whole world, he asked what Birky was holding, there were several shouts of the County Championship Trophy. His reply, what’s Birky doing with that! John went on to say that when he arrived at the ground for a match, Birky would always be in the nets, bowling away, John reckoned, that Birky loved bowling, and probably would be turning his arm over, somewhere even now. John talking about Jack Birkenshaw’s love of bowling John told the audience that Grace Road was a very rare ground, he said that in the introduction, Howard had mentioned that he had scored nine centuries, he said that in a career spanning 17 years, that his 100’s were rare events and that if he was able to auction them off, this one scored at Grace road in 1981, should be worth quite a lot of money. John said that up till this point he had not intended to speak about any of things he had spoken of, in his journey from Sussex, he had set out a different agenda completely, he said that he had just drifted along in a happy sort of a way. Then he went on to talk about Australia, as right now it would be in the mind of most people. Listening to a bit of John’s talk that was a little more serious. John told us that he had played against Australia a couple of times, but, sadly only playing for Sussex. He said that he had faced Dennis Lillie, for three balls, before being out, bowled, but, John said, Lillie had bowled a really good ball. He then told us about another match against Australians, again at Hove this time in 1985. The first 4 day match John had played in. The aussies wanted to play four days in preparation for the upcoming Ashes tests. John said it did them no good, they lost the series. However, in the match at Hove, this time a certain, Jeff Thompson is bowling. John was still Sussex captain at the time, Thompson, being the reason Barclay is coming in to bat at number 6, rather than opening. John reckoned he was having a GOOD DAY; he had hit a quick 30 or so, Jeff comes on to bowl, Barclay at the business end. John said, Thommo bowled a really bad ball, wide loosener, outside off stump, Barclay wafts at it gets a top edge and flies over gully and goes down to the rope for 4, John said he wandered down the wicket, saying Jeff I’m frightfully sorry about that. Just after this Thommo took the new ball, hit Barclay on the jaw, John said he collapsed very heroically, and ended up in hospital. John did take great pains to put out to us all that in those days, helmets were not worn, saying we were very brave. That led into the midterm break, when the raffle made another wonderful amount of £111, to add to the society funds. Thank you to everybody for your continued support. After the break John took our now usual Q&A session The first question involved John playing for Sussex second eleven in 1972, in which match Nicholas Wisdom played, the question which John said was most unexpected, was, was Nicky anything like his dad, Norman Wisdom, John told us that Nicky looks just like his dad, and yes, he did clown about like his dad. Barbara Harrington gave the vote of thanks Barbara gave a wonderful vote of thanks to John on behalf of the members, saying his charisma, amazing sense of humour and elegant pacing up and down, reminiscent of being at Wimbledon, have given us some warm summer sunshine on a cold winters night. Our next meeting is on Thursday 12th December, when there will be an Ashes visual presentation.