Frank Woolley

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Frank Woolley
Slow left-arm orthodox
RoleAll-rounder
RelationsClaud Woolley (brother)
International information
National side
Test debut (cap 163)9 August 1909 v Australia
Last Test22 August 1934 v Australia
Domestic team information
YearsTeam
1906–1938Kent
Career statistics
Competition Test First-class
Matches 64 978[a]
Runs scored 3,283 58,959
Batting average 36.07 40.77
100s/50s 5/23 145/295
Top score 154 305*
Balls bowled 6,495 94,949[b]
Wickets 83 2,066
Bowling average 33.91 19.87
5 wickets in innings 4 132
10 wickets in match 1 28
Best bowling 7/76 8/22
Catches/stumpings 64/– 1,018/–
Source: CricInfo, 28 December 2021

Frank Edward Woolley (27 May 1887 – 18 October 1978) was an English professional cricketer who played for Kent County Cricket Club between 1906 and 1938 and for the England cricket team. A genuine all-rounder, Woolley was a left-handed batsman and a left-arm bowler. He was an outstanding fielder close to the wicket and is the only non wicket-keeper to have held over 1,000 catches in a first-class career, whilst his total number of runs scored is the second highest of all time and his total number of wickets taken the 27th highest.

Woolley played for England in 64

Wisden Cricketer of the Year in the 1911 edition of the almanack and was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame
in 2009.

Early life

Woolley was born at Tonbridge in Kent in 1887, the youngest of four brothers.[9][10] His father, Charles Woolley, owned a bicycle workshop in the town's High Street and Woolley was born above the business. Charles combined his workshop with a dyeing business he had inherited from his father, but had trained as an engineer at a railway works in Ashford; it was here that he had met and married his wife, Louise Lewis, the daughter of the owner of the railway works.[7]

The family business was close to the

Tunbridge Wells Rangers F.C. in 1906.[18]

His father's business, which eventually developed into a motor vehicle garage, was doing well by the time Woolley was a teenager, and Frank had the opportunity to attend the fee-paying Tonbridge School.[16] His natural cricketing ability had, however, attracted attention. He helped out by fielding during practice matches at the Angel Ground,[18] before being asked to join in a match to make up the numbers by Tom Pawley, Kent's manager.[16] Woolley did not consider himself a scholar and did not take up the chance of a place at Tonbridge, instead opting to leave school aged 14.[16] He was officially taken on as a young professional by Kent in 1903, training full-time under William McCanlis at the Nursery during the cricket season.[9][18] His brother Claud was taken on at the Nursery around the same time.[c][21]

Woolley impressed McCanlis and the other Nursery coaches[15] and in 1905 he made his Kent Second XI debut against Surrey Second XI at The Oval.[16] Nursery professionals were made available for club sides which were able to request their service,[22] and throughout the season Woolley scored 960 runs and took 115 wickets playing for a variety of sides.[16] He was coached and mentored by Colin Blythe, a Kent professional who lived in Tonbridge and who bowled slow left-arm spin, the same bowling style as Woolley.[23] Blythe had been Woolley's childhood hero[17] and he appears to have modelled his bowling action on the older man, holding his bowling arm behind his back as he approached the wicket—Woolley's biographer Ian Peebles suggested that the main difference was that Woolley's left-arm came from his hip pocket rather than from his right armpit as Blythe's had done.[15][24]

Cricket career

Woolley pictured in 1912.

After a single Second XI match in May 1906, a match in which he played alongside his brother Claud,[25] Woolley was drafted into Kent's First XI for the County Championship match against Lancashire at Old Trafford as a replacement for Blythe who had injured his hand fielding.[23] His first-class cricket debut was marked by a third-ball duck, dropping Johnny Tyldesley, who scored 295 not out, three times and taking just one wicket in Lancashire's first innings.[10][16][26] In Kent's second innings however, he scored 64 runs and he retained his place in the side for most of the remainder of the season, only dropping out of the First XI during Canterbury Cricket Week, a significant social occasion when amateur batsmen were more likely to make themselves available to play.[26]

He took his first

county cap[18] as Kent won their first County Championship title.[10]

Writing after the end of the 1906 season, Wisden said that "Good as he already is, Woolley will no doubt... go far ahead of his first season's doings. It is quite possible he will be the best left-handed bat in England."

WG Grace's record. He scored more than 2,000 runs 12 times and in 1928 scored 3,352;[10] in every season other than 1919 he scored at least 1,000 runs for Kent.[d][31] His total of 58,959 runs[a] is the second highest of all time in first-class matches, beaten only by Jack Hobbs,[10] and his 145 centuries is seventh on the all-time list.[32]

As a bowler, Woolley was most effective before a knee injury in 1924–25.[26] He took a total of 2,066 wickets[a] and achieved the cricketer's double of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets in a season eight times.[29][33] He took 132 five-wicket hauls and took 10 wickets in a match 28 times.[8] His 1,018 catches[e] as a fielder are the most taken by any non wicket-keeper.[f][7][32]

Woolley played 64

Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1911[15][33] and was the first winner of the Walter Lawrence Trophy for the fastest hundred scored in England in 1934.[6][36]

In total Woolley played in 978 first-class matches, including a record 764 for Kent, in a career which lasted until 1938.[5][29] He holds the Kent records for most career runs, centuries and catches and for total runs in a single season and is fifth on the county's list of all-time wicket takers.[37][38] He retired aged 51, scoring 1,590 runs in his final season.[29][39] He was inducted into the Federation of International Cricketers' Associations Hall of Fame in 2000[40] and made an inaugural member of the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame when it was established in 2009.[41][42]

Style and technique

Writing for Barclay's World of Cricket,

EW Swanton described him as "as graceful a batsman as ever played".[46]

According to R. C. Robertson-Glasgow "when you wrote about him, there weren't enough words. In describing a great innings by Woolley, and few of them were not great in artistry, you had to be careful with your adjectives and stack them in little rows, like pats of butter or razor-blades. In the first over of his innings, perhaps, there had been an exquisite off-drive, followed by a perfect cut, then an effortless leg-glide. In the second over the same sort of thing happened; and your superlatives had already gone. The best thing to do was to presume that your readers knew how Frank Woolley batted and use no adjectives at all."[47] He went on: "there was all summer in a stroke by Woolley, and he batted as it is sometimes shown in dreams."[48] In his Wisden obituary, R. L. Arrowsmith wrote "his average rate of scoring has been exceeded only by Jessop and equalled by Trumper. His philosophy was to dominate the bowler. 'When I am batting,' he said, 'I am the attack'."[49]

Wartime service

HMS King George V at anchor on the Firth of Forth in 1917. Woolley was attached to the ship in 1918 at North Queensferry.

After the outbreak of

Bradford Cricket League[54] and made a number of appearances in exhibition matches, including making a century for a Lancashire side against Yorkshire during 1916.[31][51]

The same year Woolley was accepted for service by the Royal Naval Air Service. He began training in November 1916 and in March 1917 was posted to Dover, attached to a motor boat section.[31] He was promoted to Aircraftman first class and in February 1918 posted to Felixstowe where he was the coxswain of a rescue launch.[32] The RNAS merged with the Royal Flying Corps in April 1918 to form the Royal Air Force and Woolley transferred to the new organisation. He was posted to North Queensferry in Scotland where he worked for Admiral Sir John de Robeck. Robeck was a keen cricketer and Woolley was attached to his flagship HMS King George V.[32]

Robeck arranged a number of cricket matches, including at the home of Lord Rosebery the former captain of Surrey. Woolley played a number of other exhibition matches during the summer of 1918, including for an England side against a Dominions XI and for sides organised by Plum Warner.[6][32][51] He was transferred to the RAF Reserve in January 1919 before being officially discharged in 1920;[32] during 1922 he played a single first-class match for the Royal Air Force cricket team.[6]

Later life and family

Woolley with his wife and daughter in 1929

Woolley had married Sybil Fordham, the daughter of an

Local Defence Volunteers.[55] His only son, Richard, died whilst serving as a merchant seaman on SS Beaverford as part of Convoy HX 84 in November 1940,[52][55] and the house in Cliftonville was destroyed in a bombing raid in 1941.[56]

During the war Woolley played in a number of exhibition matches designed to entertain the public and help boost morale.

Tunbridge Wells, continuing to coach at The King's School for ten years as well as spending a summer coaching cricket at a Butlin's holiday camp during the early 1950s.[56] He played twice for Old England sides,[6] was elected a life member of both Kent and MCC,[49] and served on the Kent General Committee between 1950 and 1961.[56] Sybil died in 1962,[10] and Woolley moved to live with one of his daughters at Longwick in Buckinghamshire.[56]

He remained active, regularly visiting the St Lawrence Ground during Canterbury Cricket Week,[26] and in January 1971 he flew to Australia to watch the last two Tests of the 1970–71 Ashes series.[49] Later in the year he married an American widow, Martha Wilson Morse and set up home in the Canadian Province of Nova Scotia.[49][52] He died in 1978 at their home at Chester, Nova Scotia aged 91. A memorial service was held at Canterbury Cathedral and Woolley's ashes were scattered at the St Lawrence Ground.[10][56]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c One match during Woolley's career, against The Reef in South Africa in December 1909, is sometimes given first-class status. The official status of this match is that it was not given retrospective first-class status by the South African Cricket Board of Control, although until 1931 it was generally considered first-class. Woolley took two wickets and scored 10 runs in the match and some sources, including Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, have sometimes included this match when providing career statistics for him.[2][3][4]
  2. Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians, gives a figure of 15,511 six-ball overs and 235 eight-ball overs, equating to a total of 94,946 balls.[8]
  3. ^ Claud Woolley played 18 times for Kent's Second XI between 1906 and 1908, but went on to play over 350 first-class matches for Northamptonshire between 1911 and 1931.[19][20]
  4. ^ During the 1919 English cricket season county matches were reduced to two days. Kent played only 14 County Championship matches during the season.[30]
  5. ^ The number of catches that Woolley held during his career has been the subject of some variation. The total of 1,018 has been generally considered accurate since 1980.[34]
  6. ^ Woolley kept wicket as an emergency replacement during one innings of his final Test match against Australia in 1934, taking a single catch during the innings.[35]
  7. ^ Woolley's oldest brother Charlie was badly wounded during the Gallipoli campaign.[52] Claud was injured in the artillery blast that killed Colin Blythe in 1917.[53]
  8. ^ The minutes of the Kent Committee record the cause of Woolley's medical failure as compacted toes on both feet, whilst his biographer, Ian Peebles, says that it was due to problems with his eyesight and teeth.[51]

References

  1. ^ Ellis & Pennell, p. 17.
  2. ^ Milton 1998, p. 17.
  3. ^ Croudy, p. 4.
  4. ^ Caine S (1931) Notes by the Editor, Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, 1931. London: John Wisden & Co. Retrieved 29 December 2018.
  5. ^
    CricInfo
    . Retrieved 28 September 2010.
  6. ^ a b c d e Frank Woolley, CricketArchive. Retrieved 27 December 2021. (subscription required)
  7. ^ a b c d Carlaw, p. 602.
  8. ^ a b Milton 1998, p. 106.
  9. ^ a b Milton 1998, p. 5.
  10. ^ a b c d e f g Swanton 2011.
  11. ^ Milton 2020, p. 163–164.
  12. ^ Milton 2020, p. 164.
  13. ^ Moseling & Quarrington, p. 2–3.
  14. ^ Lewis, p. 33.
  15. ^ a b c d e Frank Woolley, Cricketer of the Year 1911, Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, 1912. Retrieved 26 December 2021.
  16. ^ a b c d e f g h Carlaw, p. 603.
  17. ^ a b c Milton 2020, p. 165.
  18. ^ a b c d Lewis, p. 320.
  19. ^ Lewis, p. 116.
  20. ^ Claud Woolley, CricketArchive. Retrieved 26 December 2021. (subscription required)
  21. ^ Lewis, p. 113.
  22. ^ Scoble, p. 19.
  23. ^ a b Scoble, p. 64–65.
  24. ^ Milton 1998, p. 7.
  25. ^ Lewis, p. 114.
  26. ^ a b c d e Milton 1998, p. 6.
  27. ^ Quoted in Carlaw, p. 603 and Milton 1998, pp. 6–7.
  28. ^ Milton 1998, p. 8.
  29. ^ a b c d e Moore, p. 60.
  30. ^ Lewis, p. 361.
  31. ^ a b c d Lewis, p. 321.
  32. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, p. 322.
  33. ^ a b Wilde, p. 70.
  34. ^ Milton 1998, p. 104.
  35. ^ Fifth Test match, England v Australia 1934, Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, 1935. Retrieved 27 December 2021.
  36. CricInfo
    , 23 September 2002. Retrieved 27 December 2021.
  37. ^ Burrowes et al., pp. 89–115.
  38. ^ Frank Edward Woolley, Kent County Cricket Club. Retrieved 28 December 2021.
  39. ^ Milton, p. 97.
  40. CricInfo
    , 3 July 2000. Retrieved 28 September 2010.
  41. ^ Ex-England aces dominate ICC list, BBC Sport, 2 January 2009. Retrieved 28 December 2021.
  42. CricInfo
    , 2 January 2009. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
  43. ^ a b c Swanton et al. p. 250.
  44. ^ Quoted in Bateman, p. 113.
  45. ^ From Cardus JFN (1934) Good Days. Reprinted in Hart-Davis R.
  46. ^ Quoted in Ellis & Pennell, p. 14.
  47. ^ Quoted by Hughes, p. 147.
  48. ^ Quoted by Hughes, p. 149.
  49. ^ a b c d Frank Woolley, Obituaries in 1978, Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, 1979. Retrieved 12 May 2017.
  50. ^ Renshaw, p. 23.
  51. ^ a b c d e Carlaw, p. 604.
  52. ^ a b c McCooey C (2012) The Pride of Kent, Part 2: Frank Woolley 1887–1978, Tunbridge Wells Town Crier, 3 August 2012. Retrieved 27 December 2021.
  53. ^ Lewis, p. 115.
  54. ^ Keighley, Bradford Premier League. Retrieved 28 December 2021.
  55. ^ a b Carlaw, p. 606.
  56. ^ a b c d e Carlaw, p. 607.
  57. ^ Robertson-Glasgow RC (1941) 1940: Notes on the Season, Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, 1941. Retrieved 28 December 2021.
  58. ^ Birley, pp. 263–264.

Bibliography

External links
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