Brian Close
Dennis Brian Close, was an English first-class cricketer. He was picked to play against New Zealand in July 1949, when he was 18 years old. Close went on to play 22 Test matches for England, captaining them seven times to six wins and one drawn test. Close also captained Yorkshire to four county championship titles – the main domestic trophy in English cricket. He later went on to captain Somerset, where he is widely credited with developing the county into a hard-playing team, and helping to mould Viv Richards and Ian Botham into the successful players they became.
Throughout his cricket career, which lasted from 1948 until the 1977 season, Close was one of the most charismatic and well-known cricketers. He scored almost 35,000 runs as a batsman, including 52 centuries with a highest innings score of 198. He also took 1,168 wickets as a bowler, over 800 catches as a fielder and one stumping, as a stand-in wicket-keeper. At just over six feet tall he was a noticeable presence on the field, often fielding at the short leg position, close to the batsman. As cricketers did not use head or body protection in Close's day, he would often get hurt when a batsman struck a ball that hit him. Close was also noted, as a batsman, for standing up to intimidatory bowling, letting the ball hit his unprotected torso rather than flinching.
Close was known as a cricketing gambler; he was prepared to take risks and to court controversy throughout his career. He was serving a "confined to barracks" punishment during his military service when selected for his first international cricket tour to Australia in 1950, was sacked as England captain for timewasting, and later sacked by Yorkshire for his lukewarm attitude to one-day cricket. He was also accused of not giving enough support to younger Yorkshire cricketers. He attracted further criticism by touring apartheid-era South Africa and white-minority-controlled Rhodesia with private teams. As chairman of Yorkshire's cricket subcommittee he had many run-ins with the then Yorkshire captain, Geoffrey Boycott. However, he continued to serve Yorkshire cricket, and in his seventies was coaching and occasionally captaining the county's Colts XI. He was President of Yorkshire in 2008/9.
Early years
Close was born into a working class family in Rawdon, West Riding of Yorkshire, around west of Leeds, on 24 February 1931. His parents were Harry, a weaver, and Esther. He was the second eldest of five boys and a girl. The family lived in a series of small council houses in Rawdon, Guiseley and Yeadon. Growing up, Close practised cricket with his father in the houses' back gardens; Harry Close was himself a keen cricketer, who kept wicket and was a big hitter in the Bradford Cricket League, although he never attained the standard of the Yorkshire county team. Rawdon had cricketing pedigree: Hedley Verity—an England international in the period before the Second World War, in which he was killed —grew up there, and the Verity family continued to live in the village. At Rawdon Littlemoor Primary School, Close was taught by Grace Verity, Hedley's sister, and he was friends with two of his children, Wilfred and Douglas.At Aireborough Grammar School, Close excelled both academically and athletically. The school went unbeaten in the six cricketing summers while Close was there, and the school's sport's master arranged for him to receive coaching from George Hirst, a former England international who coached Yorkshire. Close dominated junior level cricket in the area; he joined Rawdon Cricket Club in 1942, when he was eleven years of age, and was almost immediately selected to play for both the under-18 side and the second team. Close was also proficient at football, and at the age of fourteen, he was signed as an amateur by Leeds United. A natural inside forward, he became the first Leeds player to feature as a youth international, when in October 1948, he played with England against Scotland at Pittodrie Park in Aberdeen.
After passing his Higher School Certificate, Close seriously considered becoming a doctor; his headmaster at Aireborough believed that he could have been accepted into Cambridge or Oxford university, but he was not allowed to start university until he had completed two years of national service with the military. With the enforced break from his studies he chose to try a career as a professional sportsman; he signed a professional contract with Leeds United and having already played for the Yorkshire Colts in second eleven cricket, he joined them for winter coaching. The coaches encouraged Close to switch from bowling seam to being an off spinner.
Yorkshire and England
Debut season
In February 1949, Close underwent a medical examination with the British Army, but due to an injury he had suffered playing football, his call-up was delayed by a few months, allowing him to continue into pre-season training with Yorkshire. His performance in pre-season was such that he was given a trial for the county in the two first-class matches against Cambridge and Oxford Universities. He made his debut on 11 May 1949, alongside Fred Trueman and Frank Lowson – all three went on to play for England. Close impressed the Yorkshire hierarchy enough for his trial to be extended into the County Championship season; Bill Bowes, one of Yorkshire's coaches, declared that he was the "natural successor to the veteran all-rounder Frank Smailes". Close continued to perform well, particularly his bowling; in his fifth first-class game, against Essex, Close took five for 58 in Essex's first innings, then top-scored with an undefeated 88 runs in the Yorkshire innings. His performances for Yorkshire earned him a place in the North v South match, which was also being used as a trial for selection for the upcoming Test matches against New Zealand. Close scored two runs, and did not take a wicket; The Times described his batting as a "disappointing feature" of the match, but noted that despite not taking any wickets, "he bowled his off-breaks round the wicket well enough."Close continued to do well for Yorkshire and was selected to play for the Players against the Gentlemen, at Lord's in July. Unofficially, this prestigious match also served as a Test match trial, and Close scored 65 runs, the most amongst the Players, in what was described as a "most commendable performance" by The Times. During the match, Close got caught out by cricket's antiquated social etiquette. When he reached his half-century he was congratulated by the Gentlemen's wicket-keeper, Billy Griffith, who said: "Well played, Brian", to which Close responded: "Thank you, Billy". Ten days later, he was called to see Brian Sellers, a member of the Yorkshire committee, who reprimanded Close for his effrontery in not addressing an amateur player as "Mister". Despite this rebuke, the Yorkshire committee secured the assistance of the Member of Parliament for Bradford Central, Maurice Webb, who successfully requested that Close be allowed to complete the 1949 season for Yorkshire, before commencing his National Service.
Close was then selected to play for England in the third Test match at Old Trafford against the touring New Zealanders; a decision praised by The Times, who described him as "a young all-round cricketer of such promise as to demand immediate encouragement." In the match, Close became England's youngest Test player, aged 18 years and 149 days, a record he still held at his death, and which was surpassed only in 2022. He came in to bat when England needed quick runs, his instruction from Freddie Brown, the captain, being to "have a look at a couple and then give it a go". Close duly played two balls back to the bowler, then hit out for the boundary, only to be caught in the outfield for a score of nought. He had previously taken one wicket for 39 runs during the first New Zealand innings. In his autobiography, I Don't Bruise Easily, his early Test call-up is described "an albatross round neck", but Close later attributed this phrase to the book's shadow writer, Don Mosey. During the late-season Scarborough Festival, he became the youngest player to achieve the double, of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets in a single first-class season.
Tour to Australia in 1950
Close began his National Service on 6 October 1949, in the Royal Corps of Signals at Catterick Army Training Depot. Another football injury, picked up during training, meant that he spent his first month of military service excused from duties. Once he was fit again, he was given weekend passes from the army to play football for Leeds. During one of these games he was badly injured again: playing against Newcastle United he hurt his thigh in a collision with Ted Robledo. Showing the stubbornness that he later became famous for, Close played the rest of the game, but by the time he reported back for duty the next day, it was badly swollen and painful. He was excused from duties again, but not offered any treatment by the army. After around six weeks, he travelled home on leave and got some heat treatment from the Leeds United physiotherapist, but there was little progress until just before Christmas, when another examination by the army revealed ossification of the thigh. Two months of treatment and bed rest followed, which Close thinks saved his career, he said that otherwise: "the injury would have finished me. I would never had bent my leg again."Close returned to fitness in time for the 1950 English cricket season, though little of it was first-class: he appeared for Yorkshire once, and made three first-class appearances for the Combined Services cricket team. He was playing plenty of other cricket; he played in inter-services matches during the week, and obtained weekend passes to play league cricket for Leeds on Saturdays and charity matches on Sundays. Between playing football and cricket, he had little time for anything else, so much so according to Close, he was never given a job in the army, as he would have no time in which to do it. His performances attracted the attention of the England cricket captain, Brown, who wanted Close to be included in the English party to tour Australia for the 1950–51 Ashes series. Brown consulted Close's county coach, former England bowler Bill Bowes, who pleaded with Brown not to select Close, arguing that such early promotion would damage him as a player. Brown ignored Bowes and selected Close.
Close's call-up to the Australian touring party attracted considerable press interest, and a press conference was called at Catterick to give the press a chance to question him. However, his moment of glory also gave rise to controversy, when one pressman found out that Close was "confined to barracks" for disciplinary reasons at the time his call-up was announced: he had absented himself from an army cricket match. The pressman promised to stay silent, but a week later a clerk on the camp newspaper telephoned the Daily Express with the news. However, Close still toured; his National Service was suspended so that he could do so, as touring sportsmen were considered to be ambassadors for the United Kingdom.
Close was the youngest player on the tour, and had little in common with the rest of the party; by the end, he was not even on talking terms with most of them. After a reasonable start, making a century on his First Class debut in Australia, Close faltered, and then became injured, with a badly pulled groin muscle. He was selected to play in the second Test, which England lost by 28 runs. After Australia were dismissed for 194, England had collapsed to 54 for 4 when Close came in to bat, with only eight deliveries to go before the lunch interval on the second day. Misjudging the bounce on the Melbourne wicket, which was somewhat different from the bounce of English wickets, he swept a ball from Jack Iverson only to get a top edge to Sam Loxton, fielding behind square leg. E. W. Swanton called it the worst shot he had seen played by a first-class batsman. The dressing room was silent when he returned. Brown, when advised that Close was a bit down and needed consolation, replied "Let the blighter stew. He deserves it."
Later in Tasmania, Close was ordered to play despite doctor's advice to rest, and as he tried to nurse his injury he acquired a reputation for malingering and insubordination. He was made to play in six of the next seven games. When England won a Test match in Australia for the first time in 13 years in the final Test, Close was not present. Nowadays, someone in Close's position would be carefully man-managed, and looked after by captain and team manager. But times were different then, and the Yorkshire stalwarts were proved right: he had been picked too early, and would never be a regular Test player.