SPECTATOR SPORT
Test of time
Frank Keating
ALAS, I HAD to miss John Woodcock's retirement supper thrown by the Times at Lord's on Monday. I rang up the dear fel- low to wish him a good do on behalf of The Spec. 'A piece about me? Impossible. Sorry, old boy, not on. Not because it's you, but because it's me. Nobody could possibly be interested in me. I'm so pathetic if the truth was known, you see. Promise you won't write a thing?' I promised. But promises don't count if you're crossing your fingers at the time, do they?
Johnny was 66 on the second day of this year's Oval Test match. He has logged 39 years with the Times, combining six years as editor of Wisden. His retirement is official, but 'unofficially' he will be covering for the paper the relishable West Indies vs Pak- istan series this winter. This will almost bring him his one-man membership of a unique '400 club'. So far, Woodcock has covered 393 Test matches and been on 38 tours abroad. Only Richie Benaud can remotely approach that figure of Tests. Woodcock has seen a third of all Test matches ever played (1,190). If Wooders's 393 Tests were, so to speak, laid end to end every day of every week of every month, Sundays included, he has so far watched Test cricket for five years. Of the five years, which were the best five days?
`I suppose it has to be Sydney 1954-55. I was so young, we were all of an age, all such friends. We'd all gone down together on the Orsova. Then we'd been badly beaten at Brisbane in the first Test. Had we lost at Sydney the series would have been over. Len let Tyson and Statham loose. It was all perfectly thrilling. We won by 30-something and went on to keep the Ashes. I was so pleased for Len. He was such a gentle, dis- arming person, you know, wry, with a lovely sense of humour.'
I can testify to Johnny's warm encourage- ment and fraternal companionship for the tyros and bums of the pressbox, from the posh to the pops. He spans the generations from Cardus. 'Oh, I was devoted to Neville. Of course, he was always looking round for an eager listener, and he certainly found one in me. On the Stratheden going down for the '50-51 tour, he would seek me out after dinner and say, "C'mon, Johnny, I've bagged a couple of deckchairs and ordered two glasses of port and two cigars," and he'd sit me down and off he'd go, tales and yarns. Once I told him how I found the writing so daunting. It must be wonderful for him, I said, to sit down in front of a blank piece of paper and say, "Gosh, how splendid," whereas I sit down and say, "Oh, my God." And Neville said, "Don't you believe it, my dear Johnny, some days I sit down and what do I see after eight hours of perspiration? 250 words, if I'm lucky."' Cricketers? The best of his time? 'Gosh, I've loved so many of them with delight, and some of them even with passion. But only one passes the ultimate test, and when he packed up you knew with certainty you would never see his like again. When abso- lute top-notchers departed, like Greg Chappell, say, or Peter May, you thought, well, there might be another one like him one day. But not when Denis gave up. You knew it was impossible there could ever be another Compton. Such a rare bird, too, was Denis being such a happy genius. Both- am's innings at Old Trafford in '81 might well have been the best ever of its kind so faultless, such aggression, such oomph — but I'm not sure of late that I've been sufficiently generous to the modern player. It's a much more difficult, more cruel game than the one I began with. I joined a lovely game played in caps; I leave a game played in helmets. That can't be for the better; it's sad, really sad.'
Previous page
