Fred Swarbrook - an appreciation

It is funny how cricket has changed over the past forty-odd summers that I have watched the game. OK, it is essentially the same sport, but the levels of fitness and the advancement in strokeplay has been quite extraordinary, as has the overall fitness of the players. Indeed, when I first started watching Derbyshire in earnest, the combined waistlines of Fred Rumsey, Fred Swarbrook and Phil Sharpe were probably the equal of the entire current eleven.

Mind you, it did them little real harm. Sharpe, though past his best as a batsman, caught everything at slip while Rumsey was a parsimonious one day bowler, though no batsman nor fielder. For me, though, a real favourite was Fred Swarbrook.

You see, Fred was a young bloke who left us young supporters thinking we could become first class cricketers. Looking at these whippet-slim lads playing today with barely an ounce of body fat (I'm not talking Rob Key, Robert Croft or David Sales here...) is a long way removed from the rotund Swarbrook. Having said that, the quest for a spinner of comparable quality has gone on since his premature departure from the scene, a victim of the 'yips.'  His enforced retirement cast a shadow over Derbyshire cricket for some time, although, as one of my friends pointed out, Fred did that most times he moved...

Round of face and body, Fred's premature baldness made him look older than he was, a cross between Mr Pickwick and David Nixon, the TV magician. He was only sixteen on his county debut, yet in my minds eye never really looked any different. He was a 100% man, something that fans always appreciated.

On the field he was totally committed and would hold his catches, moving with remarkable speed for a man of bulk. Sometimes the legs took some time to get going, but there was an air of reassurance when Fred was under a steepler that it would be held. As a batsman he was dogged, a night watchman par excellence who transformed a good few one day innings in partnership with Bob Taylor.

Between 1969 and 1979 Fred regularly averaged between twenty and thirty, though never beat his 1970 ninety against Essex as a top score in England. He was effective rather than fluent, a batsman in the "Derbyshire method" of the time, a nurdler and nudger, working the spaces and keeping it ticking over. You never really looked forward to him batting, but were reassured by his entry to proceedings, usually at 110-6. Fred steered us to respectability more times than should really have been necessary, but much of his early cricket was in a poor side.

As a bowler he steadily improved and by 1975/76 was among the best spinners in the country. Irrespective of his size, Fred would have been an England contender today, but at that time such left arm spinners as Don Wilson, Norman Gifford, Derek Underwood and Ray East were around, all of them good players. Fred took 71 wickets at 23 in 1975, 65 at 24 in 1976. With Geoff Miller he made up our best spin pairing since Tom Mitchell and Les Townsend in the 1930s and Fred was only 26 in the latter season, with plenty of years ahead of him. In 1975 he destroyed Sussex, taking 9-20 on a day and wicket when he would have bowled out any side.

In 1977 there was a decline to 39 wickets at 29, but then Fred inexplicably lost it. Where previously he has bowled a probing length with considerable turn, now his bowling was like a baseball pitcher, full tosses and head high beamers becoming increasingly frequent as he struggled to pitch the ball. He saw a psychologist, who suggested putting a pebble in his pocket and rubbing it for luck. That same day Fred bowled one straight up in the air that came down on his head, prompting Eddie Barlow to suggest he rub the ball and bowl the pebble...

His last game for Derbyshire was in 1979 and he took no wickets that year, effectively finished at 29, though a successful career as a coach beckoned in South Africa. The statistics tell the story of a sound player though. Six thousand runs at 21 with 25 fifties; 467 wickets at 29.

Fred could play all right.

Favourite cricketers 6 - Fred Swarbrook

Fred Swarbrook was for some time the youngest player to ever represent Derbyshire.

Like Ashley Harvey-Walker, he was not by any stretch of the imagination a world-beater, but a career record of 467 wickets at just under thirty counts for something. He was also a very dogged tailend batsman, and anyone who watched Derbyshire throughout the 1970's will remember many Bob Taylor/Freddie Swarbrook partnerships that saved or won matches. Freddie was an accumulator, pushing it around, and was a remarkably reassuring sight coming down the pavilion steps with the scoreboard showing 70-6 (which it did all too often, and sometimes much worse).

As a schoolboy, Fred offered me the encouragement that I could be a cricketer. He was not athletic, and while no Colin Milburn was not the most lithe player to wear Derbyshire colours. He was, however, a man who made the very most of his abilities. He would throw himself around (a pal once asked if the earth moved for me when Freddie had made a diving stop) and there was no one you'd want under a skier more than Fred, as long as his legs got him there.

His slow left arm today would see him ranked in the top three in the country, and for a couple of years he looked like he could make it to a higher standard. Who will forget his one man demolition of Sussex, when he took 9-20? In fact, given Derbyshire have not been blessed with too many slow-left arm bowlers, you'd be safe to say Fred was the best of his kind. Certainly a better bowler than Dallas Moir, who followed him, and far more dangerous when conditions were favourable than Ant Botha.

He was the first player I recall to suffer from the "yips" and Fred got that he couldn't pitch the ball at all. He was OK in the nets, but as soon as he got in the middle, it was gone. For a time he carried a lucky pebble, which he rubbed before bowling the ball. One of his teammates eventually suggested that he "bowl the bloody pebble and put the ball in your pocket".

Fred was let go by Derbyshire when his bowling was deemed past the point of no return. Admirable a tail ender as he was, there was not enough to his batting to be retained. Like Ashley Harvey Walker and Phil Russell, he built a new life in South Africa and did well as a groundsman and coach.

I've never met him, but in case he ever reads this, I should say that in schoolboy games of cricket, I always wanted to be Freddie Swarbrook. It says it all really.