My favourite Derbyshire summer

My favourite Derbyshire season? It would be hard to go past the ‘Dean Jones summer’ in nominating a favourite, but in the pursuit of something different, I’m going to opt for 1970.

Why? Various reasons, but one was that Derbyshire played some terrific, attacking cricket that year under the captaincy of Ian Buxton in all forms of the game. The advent of South African Chris Wilkins gave much needed ‘oomph’ to the middle order. Even dour opening batsman David Smith played his shots that summer, while Peter Gibbs always looked a class apart, especially when he unfurled his trademark cover drive. Mike Page was another fine player, while John Harvey played some pugnacious knocks at five. We had the quickest bowler in the country in Alan Ward and some useful seamers as back-up.

Ian Buxton led the side well, was always prepared to play his shots and bowled some niggardly spells of massive in-swing. I’ve always been amused when people said that it is scientifically impossible to swing a cricket ball, as Buxton swung it from the hand – ‘big banana benders’ we called them.

We led the Sunday League for a while that summer but eventually tailed off to finish third behind Lancashire and Kent. Eleven wins from sixteen games and seventh in the seventeen-county Championship too. The season filled us with optimism for a bright future that never materialised, but there were some special memories from 1970.

Chief among them was watching matches at different grounds. That year, Dad’s old Ford Anglia took us to Chesterfield, Derby, Ilkeston and Buxton on various occasions and we were royally entertained.

It was the club’s centenary year too and there was a bumper issue of the yearbook with fascinating articles by former players. I must have read and re-read them hundreds of times in the intervening period as they are a fascinating glimpse into history.

On the international front, that summer was perhaps my favourite as it marked the appearance of a World XI against England that was chock-full of massive names. Barry Richards, Eddie Barlow, Graeme Pollock, Garry Sobers, Rohan Kanhai, Mike Procter, Faroukh Engineer, Intikhab Alam. For a twelve-year old boy who was already a cricket nut, this was manna from heaven! England ran them close too, under the excellent captaincy of Ray Illingworth and by the summer’s end my love for the game was well and truly established.

I even managed a match-winning innings for my school team that year, a princely unbeaten 17 made up of my then trademark swipe to leg, that latterly became the pull and hook. That I was the only player on either side to reach double figures speaks volumes for the pitch and the batsmen. I was convinced by the summer’s end that Derbyshire were an outstanding side and that I was going to play for them one day.

Wrong on both counts…

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This article also appears on IMWT.