Fred Trueman

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Fred Trueman England (ENG)
Batting style	Right-hand bat
Bowling type	Right-arm fast
	Tests	First-class
Matches	67	603
Runs scored	981	9231
Batting average	13.81	15.56
100s/50s	-/-	3/26
Top score	39*	104
Balls bowled	15178	99701
Wickets	307	2304
Bowling average	21.57	18.29
5 wickets in innings	17	126
10 wickets in match	3	25
Best bowling	8/31	8/28
Catches/stumpings	64/-	439/-
Test debut: 5 June 1952 Last Test: 17 June 1965 Source: [1]

Frederick Sewards Trueman OBE (February 6, 1931 – July 1, 2006) was a Yorkshire and England cricketer, regarded as one of the greatest fast bowlers in history. Known as Fiery Fred, he was first man to take 300 Test wickets, and later became a popular and outspoken radio summariser.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Tributes 3 Trivia 4 External links 5 References

[edit] Biography

"t'finest bloody fast bowler that ever drew breath".

Frederick Stewards Trueman was born in Stainton near Maltby, West Riding (now South Yorkshire). He is reputed to have weighed a whopping 14lb 1oz at birth and had he been born just 300 yards south, he would have been across the county border in Nottinghamshire and never have played for Yorkshire at all. He was educated at Maltby Secondary School. He made his first-class debut for Yorkshire in 1949, and quickly cemented himself at county level. He rose rapidly through the English cricketing ranks, becoming one of the best of his generation's truly fast bowlers.

He was born into a country family, the fourth of seven children. His father, Alan, worked primarily with horses and for a time as a coalface worker at Maltby Main, and as Trueman related in his autobiography 'As it was' he instilled in his children a strong sense of discipline.

Trueman wrote: "Every day Mum baked nine loaves of bread for her family and Dad made sure not one crumb was wasted. If you didn't eat your crusts at tea-time, they would be there on your plate at breakfast the next morning. If you didn't eat them then, they would appear at lunch and then tea again, until you did eat them."

Trueman played his early cricket for Sheffield United CC and his capturing six wickets for one run against a top English league side at the age of fifteen attracted the attention of Yorkshire County Cricket Club. In 1948 was invited to the winter school at Headingley to perform under the watchful gaze of Arthur Mitchell and Bill Bowes. The first report on the young Trueman read, "superb action, fairly fast", and he made his first team debut the following year. After National Service in the RAF, elevation to the Test side came in 1952 and he made a dramatic impact on his first appearance against India at Headingley. After 14 balls of India's second innings, the scoreboard read 0-4, three of the wickets to the dashing tearaway. He finished the series with 29 wickets and, as the saying goes, never looked back.

Not particularly tall for a fast bowler at 5 foot 10, he nevertheless made good use of his wide shoulders and strong legs to produce genuine pace from his classic sideways-on action. Gary Sobers regarded him as one of the finest fast bowlers he ever played against. "Fiery Fred", as he was known, also taunted batsmen with his Yorkshire humour and the icy glare that went with his aggressive nature.

Trueman was the first man to take 300 Test wickets, and no doubt could have taken many more had it not been for numerous clashes and problems with the Yorkshire and England cricketing hierarchies. He was dropped for the last Ashes Test of 1961 and, though the best fast bowler in the world at the time, was not present on the tours of Australia (1954-55), South Africa (1956-57) and (1964-65), India/ Pakistan (1961-62) or India (1963-64). From the beginning to the end of his international career, England played 118 Tests and he missed 51 of them.

Trueman recalled in his memoirs: "Irrespective of the fact I was at the top of my game for Yorkshire and frequently topped the county bowling averages, I was often overlooked for England. To my mind the reason for this was personal.

"Quite simply, some of the selection committee did not like my forthright attitude, which they misinterpreted as being 'bolshy'. Rather than pick the best 11 players for the job, the selection committee would often choose someone because he was, in their eyes, a gentleman and a decent chap. Such attributes often took precedence over someone's ability to play international cricket." He wrote in one of his several autobiographies. "For this reason I was selected for far fewer Tests than I believe I should have been. To my mind, if I'd had the opportunity to play in those Tests, I'm sure I would have topped 400 wickets. But that was not to be, even though I was regularly taking 100-plus wickets a season for Yorkshire."

Trueman took 2,302 first class wickets (including four hat tricks) at an average of 18.27, Bob Platt remembers: "If I close my eyes I can still see him pawing the ground like a bull in a Spanish ring, then running up to the wicket like silk. Whenever he came back from a Test match to play for Yorkshire, he would put a few thousand on the gate. The Yorkshire public idolised him, just as we all did." In 459 first-class matches for the county, Trueman took 1,745 wickets at 17.12, a total bettered only by Wilfred Rhodes, George Hirst, Schofield Haigh and George Macaulay. He claimed 100 wickets in a season on 12 occasions, with a best return of 175 wickets in 1960.

He was liable to explode into action at a moment's notice, John Arlott noting of him in his biography 'Ball of Fire' "The kindling could be sudden and unexpected. All that anyone knew was that suddenly he was going eagerly back to his mark; there was a belligerent spring in his run, he came over like a storm-wave breaking on a beach, and followed through with so mighty a heave that the knuckles of his right hand swept the ground....Where previously the ball had curved off the pitch calf-high, it now spat to the hips or ribs: wicketkeeper and slips moved deeper; the batsman, who had seemed established, was late on his stroke; and the whole match was transformed."

Arlott contended that only a handful of batsmen played Trueman with certainty, which meant that the temptation for captains to use him was often irresistible. His workload over the years was consequently back-breaking; he bowled more than 99,000 deliveries in first-class matches. Despite this massive work load Trueman hardly missed a game through injury, in stark contrast to the gym honed but endlessly fragile fast bowlers of today.

He took a then world record of 307 Test wickets at an average of 21.54. He was an intimidating presence off the field as well as one it when he wanted to be. One of his favourites tricks was to go into the opposition dressing room prior to a match and say, "Right, there's five wickets in here for me to start with." Like all great bowlers he psyched out almost as many batsmen as he physically dismissed. He also holds the record for most consecutive first-class matches played (67) in which he took a wicket. He reappeared in six one-day matches for Derbyshire in 1972. Trueman also played football with Lincoln City F.C. during his spell of national service in the RAF. Trueman's only concession to fatigue came after he had taken his 300th Test wicket at The Oval in 1964. Asked whether he thought his record would ever be broken, he quipped: "I don't know, but whoever does it will be bloody tired."

His first class career spanned twenty years (1949–1969), a remarkably long time for a fast bowler, and when he did eventually hang up his boots he became renowned for telling tall stories and anecdotes from his cricketing past. Trueman wrote a column for a Sunday newspaper for 43 years and became an after-dinner speaker, which earned enough for him to have a large bungalow in the Yorkshire Dales and a Rolls Royce — with the number plate FST 307.

In the 1970s Trueman presented the Yorkshire Television ITV programme Indoor League, which was broadcast at 5.15pm on a Thursday evening, after the children's programmes^[1]. This show had a notably Northern, working class focus, and featured pub games such as darts (broadcast for the first time on television), bar billiards, shove ha'penny, skittles and arm-wrestling. Trueman anchored the programme with a pint of bitter and his pipe to hand, and signed off each week with his catchphrase, "I'll sithee".

Famous for his dislike of many aspects of the modern game, especially one-day cricket and the injury rate of fast bowlers, Trueman was criticized by some, such as Ian Botham, for being unduly negative about modern players and for glorifying cricket "in my day". He was an expert summariser for the BBC's Test Match Special radio cricket commentaries for many years, and his catch phrase, "I don't know what's going off out there," summed up his dismay that modern cricketers lacked his knowledge of tactics. He was nevertheless respected for his unsurpassed knowledge of the mechanics of fast bowling, and many feel he should have been used as a bowling coach for England's under-achieving sides of the 1980s and 1990s^{[citation needed]}.

He was made an OBE in 1989, though, after Brian Johnston, a colleague on Test Match Special, had bestowed on him the nickname "Sir Frederick", there were those who thought he had really been knighted.^[2]. He gained further celebrity when his daughter, Rebecca, married the son of the film star Raquel Welch.

Diagnosed with small cell carcinoma in May 2006,^[3] he succumbed to the disease on 1 July 2006, and died at Skipton in North Yorkshire.^[4][5]

[edit] Tributes

SIR JOHN MAJOR "Fred Trueman was one of the great fast bowlers of all time. He became an icon in his pomp, and remained so all his life. England has lost a national treasure and history has gained a legend."

MICHAEL PARKINSON "The greatest fast bowler we have ever produced and one of the greatest of all time. He was a huge character, full-blooded, Shakespearean almost, and a funny man. The gap he leaves is massive."

IAN BOTHAM "He just loved to bowl. You gave him the ball; he wanted to bowl. He got through 1,100 overs on average a year: many, many more than players do nowadays, and people of his era tell amazing stories of his stamina and will to win."

EVERTON WEEKES "He was a great bowler; not only a great cricketer, but a great person. He never failed to remind you that he was a great fast bowler either!"

DARREN GOUGH"Growing up, everyone wanted to be Fred Trueman. No matter what era he played in he would have taken wickets. "What he did as a bowler was amazing. You watch some of the video clippings and it was obvious that nobody fancied facing Fred."

DICKIE BIRD "I rate him up there with the greatest fast bowlers of all time. He was up there with the likes of Dennis Lillee and one cannot pay him a higher compliment."

RICHARD CABORN Minister of Sport "He was a legend for Yorkshire and England and I remember my dad taking me down to Bramall Lane to watch him when I was a lad. He was an outspoken man, perhaps the Ian Botham of his generation, and cricket is the poorer for his passing."

GEOFF COPE Yorkshire's director of operations: "Not only have we lost an institution of the game, we have lost a knowledge that was so valuable to the game of cricket. On a personal front, he helped me greatly when I first came into the Yorkshire side. He will never be forgotten."

[edit] Trivia

• In the 1990s, he discovered that his mother's mother had been Jewish, making him Jewish in Jewish law. He said that he was happy to be called Jewish.^[6]
• Trueman made a guest appearance in "Dad's Army", a popular British television series.
• Trueman and Henry Blofeld appeared as the cricket commentators in the "Tertiary Phase" of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio series.

[edit] External links

• Player Profile: Fred Trueman from Cricinfo
• Fred Trueman at CricketArchive

[edit] References