Arthur Holt (sportsman)
Personal information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Full name | Arthur George Holt | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Date of birth | 8 April 1911 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Place of birth | Southampton, Hampshire, England | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Date of death | 28 July 1994 | (aged 83)|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Place of death | Southampton, Hampshire, England | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Height | 5 ft 9 in (1.75 m)[1] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Position(s) | Inside-forward | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Youth career | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Totton | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Senior career* | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
1932–1939 | Southampton | 206 | (46) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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*Club domestic league appearances and goals |
Arthur George Holt (8 April 1911 — 28 July 1994) was an English sportsman of the 1930s and 1940s. He played professional football for Southampton as an inside-forward, making 206 appearances and scoring 46 goals. As a cricketer, he played first-class cricket for Hampshire, making 79 appearances and scoring nearly 3,000 runs. After retirement from playing both sports, he became a coach with Hampshire from 1949 to 1965, coaching the county to its first first County Championship win in 1961. He was also the proprietor of a successful sports shop in Southampton.
Football career
Holt was born in
He was "a punchy, enterprising player" and was "reputed to be one of the hardest kickers of a dead ball in the
Cricket career
Playing career
A club cricketer in Southampton for Deanery Cricket Club, he represented Hampshire at youth level, prior to joining the staff at Hampshire in 1934.[6] He made his debut in first-class cricket for Hampshire against Somerset at Taunton in the 1935 County Championship.[7] He made seven appearances that season, scoring 174 runs.[8] In the season that followed, he made just three first-class appearances.[7] He managed to establish himself in the Hampshire side during the 1937 season, making sixteen appearances in the County Championship.[7] scoring 586 runs.[8] Notably that season against Surrey at The Oval, he made 78 in Hampshire's first innings in a third wicket partnership of 122 with Johnny Arnold, while in their second innings he made 64 in a stand of 125 for the second wicket with Arthur Pothecary. Hampshire would go onto win the match by 71 runs.[9]
His first game in the following season was against Leicestershire at Leicester, with Holt scoring his maiden first-class first century, making 116 and partnering Neil McCorkell in an opening stand of 101.[10] He played eight times for Hampshire in 1938, and in the season before the war, he made eleven appearances, all in the County Championship.[7] He scored his second first-class century in 1939, making 115 against Warwickshire and adding 137 for the fourth wicket Johnny Arnold.[11] During the war, he played a number of exhibition matches for, including for a British Empire XI in 1944.[12] Following the war, he returned to play first-class cricket for Hampshire between 1946 and 1948, making an additional 34 appearances.[7] His best return came during the 1946 season, with Holt scoring 891 runs at an average of 24.75, though he did not manage to make any centuries in his post-war cricket.[8] Overall, Holt made 79 first-class appearances for Hampshire. In these, he scored 2,853 runs at an average of 22.46.[13] With the post-war emergence of younger batsman such as Gilbert Dawson, Jimmy Gray, Leo Harrison, and Neville Rogers, Holt retired at the end of the 1948 season.[6]
Coaching career
In 1949, Hampshire coach Sam Staples was taken ill and his health rapidly declined,[6] resulting in his death in June 1950. Holt was subsequently appointed coach by Hampshire captain and joint-secretary Desmond Eagar during the 1949 season.[14] During his sixteen years coaching Hampshire, he helped to guide the county to its first County Championship win in 1961. He was regarded as a fine coach of young cricketers, with Hampshire's youth team being known as "Holt's Colts" during his tenure as coach.[15] Amongst the future Hampshire cricketers he helped coach were Bob Cottam, Gordon Greenidge, Trevor Jesty, Peter Sainsbury, and Butch White amongst others. Many of the youngsters he coached formed the team that won Hampshire's second County Championship title in 1973.[6] In 1953, he helped John Arlott persuade Henry Horton to take up county cricket as his football career at Southampton was coming to an end.[15] He was succeeded as coach by Leo Harrison.[16]
Arlott described Holt during his coaching tenure in his memoirs:[17]
"Go to the County Ground on any day in the cricket season – or, for that matter, on a good many days outside it – and somewhere between the indoor school and the pavilion you are likely to meet a comfortable, well-fed-looking man going in one direction when he obviously wants to go in several. He has a rosy face, a quizzical look in his blue eyes and one eyebrow goes up as he asks you wistfully, out of the side of his mouth, "ave you seen so-and-so?" This is 'The Coach'. Arthur Holt finds that title convenient: it saves him the embarrassment of telling ground staff boys that they must call him Mister Holt and not Arthur."
Later life and legacy
In 1946, Holt established Holt & Haskell Limited, a sports retailers in Shirley, Southampton. The business operated until 2022, specialising in the sale of cricket clothing and equipment, and was one of the United Kingdom's leading cricket specialists.[2] He was known to provide friends with large discounts on the goods he sold.[15] Holt died at Southampton in July 1994,[15] following a short illness.[18]
In 2004, the Second XI pavilion on the Nursery Ground at Hampshire's new Rose Bowl ground was officially named The Arthur Holt Pavilion in his memory.[2]
References
- ISBN 9780992686406.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i "Arthur Holt". www.saintsplayers.co.uk. Retrieved 25 February 2024.
- ISBN 0907969224.
- ISBN 0951486233.
- ^ "Saints at Gosport". Portsmouth Evening News. 15 September 1944. p. 6. Retrieved 28 February 2024 – via British Newspaper Archive.
- ^ a b c d "A-Z (H14)". www.hampshirecrickethistory.wordpress.com. Retrieved 25 February 2024.
- ^ a b c d e "First-Class Matches played by Arthur Holt". CricketArchive. Retrieved 25 February 2024.
- ^ a b c "First-Class Batting and Fielding in Each Season by Arthur Holt". CricketArchive. Retrieved 25 February 2024.
- ^ "Surrey v Hampshire, County Championship 1937". CricketArchive. Retrieved 9 November 2007.
- ^ "Leicestershire v Hampshire, Surrey v Hampshire, County Championship 1938". Retrieved 9 November 2007.
- ^ "Warwickshire v Hampshire, County Championship 1939". Retrieved 9 November 2007.
- ^ "Empire invite Hants". Portsmouth Evening News. 4 July 1944. p. 7. Retrieved 28 February 2024 – via British Newspaper Archive.
- ^ "First-Class Batting and Fielding For Each Team by Arthur Holt". Retrieved 28 February 2024.
- ^ "Yorkshire batsman joins the staff". Portsmouth Evening News. 10 February 1949. p. 9. Retrieved 28 February 2024 – via British Newspaper Archive.
- ^ a b c d "Wisden – Obituaries in 1998". Retrieved 28 February 2024.
- ^ "County prospects". Liverpool Daily Post. 16 October 1965. p. 14. Retrieved 28 February 2024 – via British Newspaper Archive.
- ^ Allen, Dave (14 September 2000). "Farewell to Northlands Road". ESPNcricinfo. Retrieved 10 November 2007.
- ^ "Sports news". Huddersfield Daily Examiner. 29 July 1994. p. 20. Retrieved 28 February 2024 – via British Newspaper Archive.