Sheffield Cricket Lovers' Society Year Book 2026

Society member GERALD HORROCKS was always a cricket obsessed youngster, playing as often as he could, until he held his own in the strong leagues in Lancashire. And on those lush green wickets he shared his love of the game with some of the greats of the game. I was born and brought up in Bolton, Lancashire, to a keen cricket father and a patient Mum. Dad was a very keen gardener and spent most of his summers pottering in his garden, whilst listening to Test Match Special on his old radio. The elegant Tom Graveney was his favourite batsman, so he would stop his work occasionally to practice his cover drive with his a sweeping brush, rake, hoe, or whatever was close to hand. Dad played local league cricket as a young man and also at St. Mary’s College in Twickenham, where he trained to become a teacher. Luckily for me I had an older brother, Steve, who also enjoyed cricket so we spent many happy hours playing it on the long drive from our house. We enjoyed the perfect opportunity for our practice and the garage door was an excellent wicket keeper! Being sports addicts we had the luxury of a basketball hoop on the side of the house which enabled us to become quite proficient at shooting baskets, too. As a family we regularly holidayed in Cornwall. In actual fact it wasn’t a case of asking where we were going on holiday, but rather which part of Cornwall were we going to. Steve and I always preferred Perranporth, mainly for pure cricketing reasons; the beach there was optimal for producing the finest wicket! From the age of eleven I attended Thornleigh Salesian College in Bolton, an all boys school that had excellent sporting facilities. Unsurprisingly, my love of cricket grew and grew, with the biggest influence during those years being John Kelly. He was an excellent groundsman but, even more importantly, had been an opener for Derbyshire, and others, for ten years. In 1957 he registered a century against Gloucestershire and you can imagine how much I lapped up being coached as a youngster by someone with that level of experience. John really helped develop my cricket, especially my batting during the shortish summer terms and I couldn’t get enough of it. Thornleigh had several X1s who played competitive games against local schools. That was also due in no small part to us having masters who would give up their Saturdays to drive us around when playing away and, of course, umpire as well. My mentor had both high standards and expectations. On one occasion I hit a ball to the leg boundary to win the game but he wasn’t at all impressed, complaining that I had hit across the line instead of driving through the ‘V’. “That’s what club cricketers do,” he intimated, “Play over the bowler’s head - On the coat tails of legends... 10