Tag: Sport

The text of Sir John Major’s comments made at the Thanksgiving Service for Sir Alec Bedser CBE, held at Southwark Cathedral on Monday 12th July 2010.

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SIR JOHN MAJOR:

Alec and Eric Bedser were indivisible: even God made them complementary. One bowled medium fast. One was a spinner. One was a batsman. One wasn’t. Both fielded – in a stately fashion.

And both would have been surprised – and enormously touched – that thousands of years of friendship and admiration are gathered here today to say farewell to Alec.

Arthur Morris and Micky Stewart are from cricket’s High Table, and have spoken with affection of the Alec they knew. Alec would have liked that: he didn’t approve of everyone but he did approve of Micky. And he loved Arthur Morris like a brother and – in Alec’s world – nothing meant more than that.

As a boy, I idolised Alec Bedser from the cheap seats: later, I came to know him as a friend. There was nothing false or puffed-up about Alec. His values and opinions didn’t change with fashion. What you saw was what you got: a big man – with an even bigger heart.

And – as St. Peter will surely have learned by now (at least from Eric) – Alec was a cricketer. An English cricketer. In Alec’s lexicon, only Australia came close to England as a nation. “And they” – as he explained his affection for Australians – “were English once”. Two hundred years of nationhood had not changed Alec’s mind about Australian origins.

Such men as the Bedser brothers are rare. In times long gone, their forebears fought at Agincourt and Waterloo. Alec – and Eric – served their country too, in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War. Alec fought on after the War: at Lord’s, The Oval, Brisbane and Sydney. For years he was the English pace attack: an indefatigable giant in the direct line of Sydney Barnes and Maurice Tate, untiring and often unplayable: but not always, so I am told, uncomplaining.

Alec’s views on cricket were trenchant – often generous, sometimes not, but always backed by his love – and knowledge – of the game.

However, he wasn’t a lover of every aspect of modern cricket. I sat with him when an English fast bowler hurled himself full-length to save a run. “Wonderful,” breathed an eminent fellow guest, “… and he’ll have to bowl after tea.”.

Alec didn’t agree. His view was different: “Bloody fool – if he’d hurt himself he couldn’t bowl, could he?”.

To watch cricket with Alec was an education. To listen to him was a master-class. He and Eric had prodigious memories. “Brother had him caught at second slip.” Eric would say of some obscure game played fifty years ago. “Yeah”, Alec would add, “Low down. Left hand. Old Laurie Fishlock nearly dropped it.”.

When Alec was Knighted for “Services to cricket”, the brothers were delighted. Eric said: “He’s the first bowler to be Knighted since Sir Francis Drake”.

Those of us privileged to know Alec could offer a thousand vignettes.

He came to No 10 one summer’s evening, clutching a bag of his home-grown runner beans. These were promptly removed and searched for explosive devices. However – as I learned later on – the only explosive device present had been Alec: “Beans!” he said to me. “Beans! If I was going to blow you up I’d have put it in me cauliflower”.

Alec was a good friend to have. His support – in all circumstances – was total. He lived life like he played cricket – for the team, never for himself. And always – of course – for Eric. In life, they were inseparable. Now, they’re reunited, and will never be apart again.

I like to think they’ve rejoined old friends, formed a celestial cricket team, and now discuss tactics over their usual midday pint. I can picture Alec on some green field: bowling again to Bradman, perhaps, and testing himself against Grace and Trumper. A little cloud cover would help his swing and, with luck, the heavenly turf will allow the leg-cutter to grip. If so, the batsmen had better be on their mettle: they are facing the greatest medium-fast bowler of his time – perhaps any time.

Alec played cricket like a poet: his length and line were perfect. The finest poem cricket has known, written of a much earlier great bowler, ended with the plea that “the turf may lay softly upon him”.

And on you, dear Alec. And on you.

The text of Sir John Major’s speech to the Pitch Perfect Cricket Diversity Dinner, held at the Guildhall in London on Monday 28th June 2010.

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SIR JOHN MAJOR:

My Lord Mayor, Your Excellency, Sheriffs, Ladies/Gentlemen.

It is a great privilege, Lord Mayor, to be in this wonderful building. Guildhall is as old as cricket and a superb venue to celebrate the game and to raise funds so that more young people can play it.

The “Pitch Perfect” initiative raises money for music and cricket. Both warm the soul and train the mind. Tonight, we concentrate on cricket and bringing it back to schools, where the game has withered for over 30 years.

Lord Mayor, we are enormously grateful for your generous hospitality here this evening, and – on behalf of all those children who are not here tonight – but will benefit from your splendid Appeal – I thank you warmly.

We’re here in the heart of the City. In this hub of the world of finance, it is easy to forget that cricket is a game. It’s played for fun. When 16th century rustics – in their few precious hours of leisure – batted with a block of wood against a tree stump, it was pure fun. In the days of the I.P.L., where cricket is a business, it is wise to remember that most cricket is still played for fun.

Nearly 60 years ago – as a boy – I played cricket on the streets of Brixton – not very far from here. Those hours still provide many happy memories and so it is for all cricketers from street level to Test level. Surely those of us who have enjoyed such moments wish to pass them on to others. And, in that, I include the many distinguished cricketers here with us this evening – whose support is very welcome and much appreciated.

The love of cricket is gloriously classless.

When Prime Minister I went to Canterbury Week and was strolling around the tents with Jim Swanton and Bob Runcie, then Archbishop of Canterbury. Amid much merriment, a voice called from the crowd:- “Who are those two men with Jim Swanton?”. Cricket lovers have always had a proper sense of priorities.

Cricket at its best draws in spectators and players alike so that the whole world can shrink to what is unfolding on a cricket pitch.

In 1950, the England selectors held a Test Trial before picking the team. In the game, Jim Laker took 8-2 and so the selectors learned very little – except that Laker was unplayable on a helpful wicket.

Hubert Doggart was Captain of the losing team. As wickets fell he spoke abstractedly to the – now much missed – Bedser Twins.

Where born Alec? Reading. Where born Eric? Reading: my mother didn’t have a bike in those days.

Many great authors have loved cricket, and brought it to life in print:

P.G. Wodehouse, J.M. Barrie. Trollope created a character – Sir Kennington Oval. Dickens had a cricket ground next to his Gad’s Hill house. Dorothy L. Sayers’ fictional detective Peter Wimsey scored 100 for Oxford.

Byron and Keats played cricket. Byron lied about the runs he scored. And Keats – soon after writing the immortal line “A thing of beauty is a joy forever” – wrote in his diary:

“Yesterday, I got a black eye – playing cricket.”

It was with a white ball, too …… nothing is new.

Cricket tells you a lot about people:

Conan Doyle loved cricket. Professor Moriarty did not.

Montgomery loved cricket. Rommel did not.

Montgomery’s father lived close enough to The Oval to hear crowds cheering Jack Hobbs. Monty himself, who once told his troops to “Hit Rommel for Six” was at The Oval for Don Bradman’s last Test innings, when he was bowled by Eric Hollies for 0.

As Bradman returned to the Pavilion, Montgomery said to him: “Bradman, let me tell you where you went wrong”. Absurdity of his offering advice to greatest run-getter of all time escaped Monty.

No sense of irony, Montgomery. He once remarked: “As God said …and he may have been right”.

During a Commonwealth Conference, I once opened the batting with Bob Hawke, then Prime Minister of Australia, in a charity match.

Hawke stole the bowling unmercifully and when – suddenly – we were ushered off the pitch to – as the Umpire unkindly put it – “make way for the real cricketers”, I asked Bob if he’d known we only had ten overs. He looked pretty shifty: “Jeez, yes John. Didn’t I tell you?”. Believe me, on and off the pitch the Aussies are tough competitors – but always very welcome visitors, And – tonight – I’m delighted to see among the company my friend, John Dauth, the Australian High Commissioner. Also – that bowler – Mitchell Johnson and Mr Cricket ‘Mila’ Sunny.

This winter, England defend the Ashes in Australia. In 1932, England won using intimidating “bodyline” bowling, that wouldn’t be permitted – or I hope even contemplated – today. The England captain, Douglas Jardine, was Public Enemy Number One.

As he left the field, a voice under a baggy green cap muttered: “You bastard, Jardine”. Jardine was furious. He burst into the Australian dressing room and complained bitterly to the Australian captain, Woodfull.

Woodfull looked around the room and said: “Right – which of you bastards called this bastard a bastard?”.

Not everyone is a fan. I tried to explain cricket to an American President who found it hard to comprehend that any game could last for five days, with no positive result. His eyes glazed over. I also tried to explain it to Boris Yeltsin over a vodka – or two. His eyes glazed over too – although – I suppose – that could have been the vodka.

Cricket and politics have many similarities. Apart from nostalgics, they attract pessimists. As long ago as 1932, C.P. Snow was complaining:

“These days, a man of taste can only go to an empty ground and regret the past!”. The same dreary view can often be heard today.

For some, the past is always the Golden Age. In the 1930s, Neville Cardus once wrote of falling asleep at Lord’s to the complaints of an elderly spectator that cricket “wasn’t what it used to be”. Cardus awoke to see Larwood bowling to Hammond. Anyone who dozed off over recent years might have woken to see Warne bowling to Tendulkar. The game remains endlessly fascinating.

And cricket attracts all manner of people. Nelson Mandela told me that his first question on leaving Robben Island was: “Is Don Bradman still alive?”.

At the moment, cricket is passing through a revolution. But the game itself – as Ben Jonson said of Shakespeare – is “not of an age, but for all time”.

But, of course, it changes. For the purist, watching a great batsman play 20/20 is like watching Red Rum pull a milkcart. But 20/20 has carried the game to millions upon millions who would not otherwise have watched it.

And widening the game is imperative. 17th century soldiers and sailors carried cricket around the world and – although you may not have known it – cricket played a part in winning the last War.

Many of you will have seen that great film “The Dam Busters”, in which Barnes Wallis designed a bomb that skipped across the water to destroy the walls of the three great German Dams, and flood the Ruhr.

In trials, the bombs simply sank gently beneath the water. One technician, George Edwards, a spin bowler, knew why: he knew the difference between top spin and back spin. The bomb was re-designed and the three dams – the Mohne, Sorpe and Eder – were taken out with ……. a leg-break.

But the Germans are not without a love for the game. In the First World War, a wounded soldier lay on the battlefield of the Somme when a German Officer approached. He searched the British soldier and read the papers in his pocket. “I see you are a member of the MCC. You are a lucky man. You can return to your line”. So MCC members present should note that their subscription can also serve as a life insurance……

Once, cricket was solely an English game. Now, it belongs to the world. And, whenever it is played, it draws people together. From all corners of the world – most recently China and Afghanistan – and from all corners of society: cricket is so much more than just a game.

Here in the UK, especially in London and the inner cities, we have too many young people with nowhere to go and nothing to do.

Yet all of them have a healthy competitive spirit. If we hope to get our children out of doors, away from television and computer screens – if we want them fit not fat, in teams not gangs – then we should support ‘Pitch Perfect’. We need to channel their energies into something positive, rather than negative.

Not only will our children and grandchildren benefit from it, but society will too.

“Pitch Perfect” has the initiative and drive to push this ambition forward. With your help, we can make that ambition become a reality.

Thank you, Lord Mayor, for giving us this opportunity – and thank you all for being here tonight in support of it.

The text of Sir John Major’s speech at the Commonwealth’s 60th Anniversary Dinner, held at Lords in London on Wednesday 14th October 2009.

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SIR JOHN MAJOR:

When the Secretary General proposed this dinner, he brought together two institutions that inter-link and endure.

Cricket, of course, is 400 years older than the Commonwealth but it continues to provide the cement that keeps together fifty-three diverse nations of varying size and wealth, across continents and oceans. Often, their interests converge, sometimes they collide, but they all share a common affection for cricket.

I once tried to explain cricket to an American President – and his eyes glazed over. He found it hard to comprehend a game that could last five days – but with no positive result. I tried with Boris Yeltsin, too, over a large vodka. His eyes glazed over too, although – just perhaps – that was due to the vodka. But in the Commonwealth – the pace of cricket fits with the rhythm of life.

The Commonwealth was born out of the break up of an Empire when common ideals, shared interests and age old sentiment saw virtue in a loose association of nations. Today, some people doubt its relevance – but they are wrong to do so.

The Commonwealth has values in common: democracy, freedom, the rule of law. It promotes social and economic development – especially in the 32 Member States with populations of less than 1½ million.

The well-being of Nations often hangs on the affection between populations and even on relations between individuals in Government.

In our hard-headed, materialistic world, some think such a judgement is pure nostalgia for an age that never existed. I disagree. A Commonwealth gathering is more intimate, more friendly, than a meeting of the G20 or United Nations – and far less bloody than the European Council. Arguments may be fierce, but consensus is usually possible. It is more like an extended family than quarrelling neighbours.

But there is nostalgia in the musings of cricket lovers: where, in the Commonwealth, have you not heard arguments about the relative merits of cricketers – often long dead before those arguing were born? Was Victor Trumper better than Hobbs? Or Learie Constantine a greater match winner than the Nawab of Pataudi? Discuss and enjoy.

Across the Commonwealth, sport has a role, evident every four years in the Commonwealth Games. The ancient Greeks understood the value of sport – and so does the Commonwealth. And in the Commonwealth, the King of Sports is cricket. I rarely had a meeting with a Caribbean leader – or an Indian or a Pakistani – without it featuring. Good-natured banter prevailed over political wariness.

With Australians, cricket was almost a formal agenda item and with South Africa and New Zealand it jostled with Rugby for a share of the time. Nelson Mandela once told me that one of the first questions he asked on leaving Robben Island was: “Is Don Bradman still alive”.

At the Commonwealth Conference in Harare in 1991, we held a cricket match. I opened the batting at the Wanderers Ground with Bob Hawke, then Prime Minister of Australia. The ground was overflowing but, to prevent swollen heads among the politicians, it was made clear to us that the spectators had come to see their local hero, Graeme Hick. To them – and how wise they were – cricket mattered a good deal more than politics!

Our time on that pitch revealed some national characteristics: Hawke stole the bowling unmercifully and when – after 10 overs – we were ushered off the pitch to – and I quote the umpire – “make way for the real cricketers”, I asked Bob if he’d known we were only due to have a brief time at the wicket. Looking – only a little shifty – he replied: “Jeez, yes, John, didn’t I tell you?”. Believe me, the Aussies are tough competitors – on and off the cricket field.

Cricket and politics have many similarities. Apart from nostalgics, they attract pessimists. As long ago as 1932, C.P. Snow was complaining:

“These days, a man of taste can only go to an empty ground and regret the past!”. The same dreary view can often be heard today.

For some, the past is always the Golden Age. In the 1930s, Neville Cardus once wrote of falling asleep at Lord’s to the complaints of an elderly spectator that cricket “wasn’t what it used to be”. Cardus awoke to see Larwood bowling to Hammond. Anyone who dozed off over recent years might have woken to see Warne bowling to Tendulkar. And tomorrow, some equally compelling contest is certain.

In the Commonwealth, cricket has always played a special role. The West Indian cricket writer, C.L.R. James argued that – for the West Indies – cricket had a magic that was a guiding light for the dispossessed and the disenfranchised.

I believe that to be true. Over many decades, cricket has, for some, been an escape from obscurity to fame, poverty to comfort, exclusion to inclusion.

Think of the great players who first picked up a bat and ball on the streets of Lahore or Kingston or Mumbai. But – more widely than its influence on individuals – cricket touches deep and conflicting emotions. One need only think of how an Ashes win lifts morale in England or Australia. Or a Series win between India and Pakistan – or Australia and New Zealand – or … well, I don’t think I need go on.

Cricket can uplift whole communities – whole nations, even – or cast them down. It adds value to lives. The classic illustration was here at Lord’s in 1950. That year, the West Indies took on England at her own game, in her own country, at the very headquarters of cricket.

And they beat her on merit. Perhaps no win in cricket ever had such social significance as Ramadhin and Valentine’s destruction of England at Lord’s. The game was won by the charm and guile of the cricketing sophisticates’ delight: the art of great spin bowling. It was intelligent cricket – the West Indies out-thought England as well as out-played them. As a result, notwithstanding their tough lives, all West Indians walked a little taller.

The Commonwealth has infinite variety. Large nations. Small Nations. Old Nations. New Nations. Rich Nations. Poor Nations. They all take their place. And within them – cricket takes its place. And because cricket is a game of the mind, the way it is played reflects the very marrow of the nation from which the players come. Even putting aside physical characteristics, the professional cricket watcher would soon know whether he (or she) was watching Australia or Sri Lanka, West Indies or England, South Africa or India.

Many years ago that great cricketer, Prince Ranjitsingh, analysed a cricket crowd:

“There are all sorts and conditions of men around the ropes – bricklayers, bank clerks, soldiers, postmen and stockbrokers. And in the pavilion are QCs, artists, Archdeacons and leader writers. Bad men, good men, workers and idlers are all there and all at one in their keen-ness over the game … cricket brings the most opposite characters and the most diverse lives together”.

He might have added that such sentiments apply to countries, too. Within the Commonwealth, cricket is an invisible bond, a shared love that brings people together. Cricket is cohesive, not divisive.

I saw this for myself in the mid-1990s when I was invited to speak to the South African Parliament, during the first post-Apartheid visit of a British Prime Minister.

I took with me some famous sporting personalities and we visited Soweto, armed with sporting equipment for the young children there. Colin Cowdrey and Alec Stewart presided over the cricket nets. That wonderful athlete Judy Simpson held a masterclass in athletics. Bobby Charlton demonstrated his mastery of football.

In the nets, I bowled Steve Tshwete, the South African Sports Minister, first ball. It was – as I recall – the only positive headline I got that year. All Soweto turned out and the sports stars were mobbed. But cricket held sway – except for one small boy.

He had been coached on hurdling by Judy Simpson and told to practice every single waking moment. He was then coached on cricket by Colin Cowdrey. “I’ll practice day and night, Mr Cowdrey”, the boy promised. “Absolutely not!”, said a horrified Colin, “you must be sure to get plenty of sleep too”. Colin wasn’t called “Kipper Cowdrey” for nothing.

As the boy walked away shaking his head, I heard him mutter: “The cricket man says I’ve got to sleep. Cricket must be for sissies”. And he tossed down his cricket bat and began hurdling over it instead.

During those hours in Soweto there was an outpouring of sheer, exuberant joy amidst profound hardship. Never doubt the healing properties of sport.

The game of cricket today is a far cry from the age of humbug when W.G. Grace pocketed large fees for playing cricket, at the same time as he symbolised and promoted the concept of the Gentleman Amateur.

We have moved on from the age when, in England, the Captain, the Amateurs and the Professional players all used different dressing rooms and stepped onto the pitch through separate gates. Such images symbolise times long past. As does the Empire that is now a Commonwealth.
In an ever-shrinking, increasingly inter-dependent world, both the Commonwealth and cricket continue to grow. Once cricket was an English game. Now it belongs to many countries – even Afghanistan and China are adopting it with enthusiasm. When I saw the Prime Minister of Kuwait recently, he was telling me about the cricket pitch he has just designed at his country residence, hopeful that – by the time I next visit – it will be ready for play.

Cricket and the Commonwealth continue to march together. The intricacies of both are difficult to explain, but both continue to thrive. They are linked by history, and have evolved over time to reflect our shared interests, common goals, sense of fair play – and sense of fun.
In forty years’ time – when the Commonwealth marks its Centenary Year – I hope and believe that cricket will still be playing its own unique role in strengthening and widening the Commonwealth we celebrate tonight.

This is the text of Sir John Major’s speech at the National Sporting Club Lunch, in honour of the South African touring team, held at the Royal Garden Hotel in London on Tuesday 8th July 2008.

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SIR JOHN MAJOR:

Thank you, David, my book is available in all good book shops…

Let me first welcome the South African team to England. We’re absolutely delighted to see them here – and looking forward to seeing them play on Thursday of this week. Huge excitement about this tour.

From the few hours cricket our wretched weather has enabled them to have, it is regretfully evident their batsmen are in good form and I think everyone – with the exception of the English batsmen – are looking forward to seeing their new pace attack.

Over the years, we’ve come to value games against South Africa and the forthcoming series, albeit only three instead of five that I would wish it to be, promises to be vintage. Let’s hope for good cricket (likely), good crowds (certain), good weather (hugely problematic) and a good outcome to the Series although that, of course, may not mean the same thing to the two Teams. In any event – should be a spicy contest. I don’t think I’m the only person who can’t wait for Thursday…

By its very nature, cricket brings victory and defeat and delight and despair. Ironically, it was an Englishman with the unusual name – not of

Despair, but of a man called Anguish – who, probably, first introduced cricket to South Africa. We can be grateful that he did because, since then, we have enjoyed watching a great stream of cricketers from Dudley Nourse to the present team.

I look about this room and see my generation reasonably represented.

One great regret for my generation is that – when politics ruled South Africa out of Test cricket – some truly great players like Barry Richards, Mike Proctor, Graeme Pollock and Eddie Barlow had their Test career ruined. As a result, cricket lost sight of what might have been one of the greatest of all Test sides in the long history of Test cricket. Thankfully – for South Africa – such days are long behind us.

South Africa’s Captain, of course, for this Tour is Graham Smith, well-known here and widely admired. When England first toured South Africa in 1889, the English Captain for the First Test was also called Smith – C. A. Smith, but perhaps better known as C. Aubrey Smith, Hollywood actor, star of Rebecca and The Prisoner of Zenda.

Aubrey Smith played only one Test whereas Graham has not only played a great many – with, hopefully, many to come – but Graham is by far a greater cricketer than his earlier name-sake. I am not sure, however, how good he may be as an actor!

A few years after that first Tour, a trend began that has not yet ended. Over recent decades, several very fine South African cricketers have played for England – no doubt to immense South African frustration. This is not a new phenomenon. We are prepared to accept anyone.

In the early 1889 Tour, an Englishman, R. M. Poore, once ADC to cricket’s Lord Harris in India – turned out for South Africa against the English tourists. Lord Hawke, the English Captain, and Harris’ protegé was apoplectic – and tried to poach him back to the England Team but lamentably failed to do so. I mention this only to discourage anyone from looking at the antecedents of any members of the current England team.

One of the delights of cricket is that you don’t have to be good at it to enjoy it. I have always loved cricket but was only an average player. My failure to pick in-swing, out-swing, leg-spin, off-spin and length – condemned me to a life of politics.

Once, I failed to pick the wrong people and questioned their parentage. With apologies, it was true. I was once forthright in private and off the record.

Nevertheless, cricket was always a solace, even in the most difficult days. I remember after having lost the 1997 Election rather comprehensively, I went to the West Indies to watch an England game and – with that gift that served me so well in politics – picked the only game in Test history that was abandoned because the pitch was unfit.

Hopefully, the weather won’t call off any of the games during this Tour and I wish the South African team a good Tour, free of injury – and (of course, within the limits of my English prejudice) every success both on and off the pitch.

It is, Graham – truly – a delight to have you here.

[Indistinct, but anecdotes relating to cricket].

I don’t expect any instances like that but I do expect some wonderful cricket and I think a very large part of that wonderful cricket will be played by the South African team.