Dave McCormick on the late cricket legend’s visits to a local club
Sir Garfield (Gary) Sobers, arguably the greatest all round cricketer ever, died on 17th July at the age of 89.
Not only did he play for the West Indies between 1954 and 1974, score over 28,000 first class runs including 365 against Pakistan, take over 1,000 wickets and hit six sixes in one over for Nottinghamshire against Glamorgan (check it out on the BBC website), he also played twice against Barnet Cricket Club.
In the early 1960s cricketers were poorly paid and so ‘international teams’ made up of top class players and a few celebrities took on club teams in front of thousands of people who would throw money into buckets and blankets to contribute to charities and benefit funds.
On Sunday, 11th September 1960, when Sobers was 24-years-old, Barnet Cricket Club took on Vic Lewis’s International XI comprising Mickey Stewart, Jim Parks, Sobers, Roy McLean, Rohan Kanhai, Ken Barrington, John Waite, Roy Castle, Freddie Truman, Vic Lewis, Hugh Tayfield. Roy Castle (later the presenter of Record Breakers) and Vic Lewis were musicians and keen cricketers, and the other nine players all represented their countries.
The Vic Lewis XI rattled up 439 with the main contributions coming from Sobers (103), Kanhai (74) , Trueman (71), Barrington (57) and Roy Castle (56).
In return Barnet reached 231 all out (G. Amor 85, R. Pett 57, C. B. Wright 37, F.G. McCormick 0 not out).
On the bowling front, Freddie Trueman took 3 for 23 off eight overs for the Vic Lewis XI and for Barnet M. Tant had figures of 3-40 and F.G McCormick 2 for 60.
In a repeat match the following year, Vic Lewis’s XI scored 217 for 5 wickets (Roy Mclean 102, Gary Sobers 35) in reply to the Barnet score of 216 all out (C.B. Wright 69, D Robinson 40, F.G McCormick 9 not out).
In 1961 I was five months old when my father Frederick George McCormick (‘Mac’) played against Gary Sobers for the second time. My mother would have been in the clubhouse making cricket teas and my elder sister would have been toddling around.
Mac continued playing for Barnet into the 1970s. One of his best friends was Lester Finch who represented Great Britain at football in the 1936 Summer Olympics, captained Barnet Football Club to victory in the 1946 Amateur Football Cup final at Stamford Bridge and also played cricket for Barnet.
After his death in 2007 Mac’s ashes were scattered on the Barnet cricket square.
Barnet CC merged with Old Elizabethans CC in 2012. The Barnet Cricket Club and the Barnet Football Club grounds in Barnet Lane are now part of the Ark Academy School which opened in 2019.
There seems to be little available online about the history of Barnet Cricket Club – it would be great if memories and memorabilia could be collected about what was an important part of our community for a long time.
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