Dennis Compton, Willie Watson et al were able in their sporting
careers to excel in more than one sport at International levels.
Today,each individual sport makes tremendous demands upon the
individual's time and also on the monthly calendar so that outstanding
individuals rarely play more than one sport. In Sussex this year
(2000) a deliberate attempt was made to ecnourage young cricketers
to play other winter sports and refrain from taking part in interminable
sessions of winter nets.
In 1991 we selected an England side fully expecting that at least
one and possibly two of our selections could well be playing for
the full England side by the year 2000.
Until 1990 we had selected an England side with out the assistance
of a professional coach but in that year David Lloyd was appointed
coach to the England squad. He was succeeded after only one year
by John Abrahams, ex captain of Lancashire CCC. John has been
the subject of a tricky cricket question "Who won the man
of the match award in a National One day final and he did not
bat or bowl in the game? " Answer John Abrahams - awarded
man of match for his captaincy.
The England Under 14 side of 1991 were the first to have a training
sesssion the day before an international match. John called the
team together and took a marvellous coaching session on fielding
and captaincy. He was quite impressed with some of our selected
players.
As selectors we had chosen the final England squad from the four
Regional sides who played in an Under 14 cricket festival.
The preparation by the South of England side had been disastrous.
A fire had broken out at Radley School in the kitchen and we had
to abandon our winter residential coaching course. Of the two
trials - one was completely rained off. Thus we arrived at the
Festival with an untried squad of 15 players. Our first match
was against the North. We wilted under the onslaught of Chilton
and Neville who put on an opening stand of 200 runs before we
took our first wicket. We were fortunate to have in our side a
classical batsman, David Goodchild, who valiantly tried to stem
the tide of departing South batsmen.
When the England side got together the representation from the
North Region was very strong. Indeed 3 of them are with County
Clubs today. The odd one out is Philip Neville. This was to be
his last season of cricket. His father , the Commercial Manager
of Bury F.C. advised us that his son Philip was probably worth(
potentially) about £1,000,000 to Manchester United F.C.
and the football club wanted Philip to give up the game of cricket.
There was a very good chance that Philip would have made the grade
as an England cricketer - indeed,in my humble opinion, he should
now be opening the England innings alongside Michael Atherton.
When I collected my normal crop
of autographs at the festival dinner I fully expected the young
players Neville and Morris to make their way in professional sport.
One chose football and the fame and wealth which that game brings
; the other chose cricket. Alex Morris remains a promising cricketer
with his "new" County of Hampshire.