Harold Stephenson
Encyclopedia
Harold William Stephenson (18 July 1920 - 23 April 2008) was an English first-class
cricketer
who played for Somerset
. He captained Somerset from 1960 until his retirement in 1964.
Stephenson is easily the most successful wicket-keeper
in history for Somerset, and is the county's only cricketer to have taken 1000 dismissals. He also holds the county record for the most stumpings in a season as well as most catches in a season.
, Stockton-on-Tees
, County Durham
and played Minor Counties cricket for Durham
in 1947, succeeding Dick Spooner
, who had been recruited by Warwickshire
, as wicketkeeper. Stephenson in turn was recruited by Somerset in 1948, having been recommended to the county by Micky Walford, the amateur batsman and schoolmaster who also came from Stockton.
The following season, however, he succeeded the long-serving Wally Luckes
as the regular wicketkeeper and, despite missing half a dozen matches, he set a new county record for dismissals, with 39 catches and 44 stumpings for Somerset (plus two more catches in an end-of-season representative match). The number of stumpings remains a Somerset record. Wisden
said that he "exceeded expectations" and added: "Some of his stumpings off the slow bowlers were remarkably clever and quick enough to suggest optical tests for umpires." He also made more than 700 runs, batting mostly down the batting order at No 7 or No 8.
That 1949 season set the pattern for Stephenson: he was at or near the top of the wicketkeepers' lists for dismissals for the next decade, setting the Somerset record with 86 dismissals in 1954. Somerset wicketkeepers have made 70 or more dismissals in a season 16 times, and Stephenson accounts for exactly half of those.
In addition, his batting developed. In 1952, he made the first of what would prove to be seven career centuries with 114 against Glamorgan
at Swansea
, with four sixes and 11 fours. He passed 1,000 runs for the season for the first time in 1952, and then did so in each of the next four seasons. In the mid-1950s, he was batting higher in the order, often at No 3, though this was partly due to the weakness of the Somerset side, which finished bottom of the County Championship
for four consecutive seasons from 1952 to 1955.
Playing for a weak team may not have helped Stephenson's representative career, though England
were not short of outstanding wicketkeepers in this period. The nearest he got to Test
honours was as part of a Commonwealth team that toured India in 1950-51, when he took part in two of the "unofficial Tests" and headed the batting averages for the tour as a whole. In 1955-56 he toured Pakistan with an MCC
"A" side and played in two of the "representative matches" against what was close to being a full Pakistan Test side.
Stephenson was first-choice wicketkeeper for Somerset throughout the 1950s, but he missed much of the county's most successful season for 66 years: the 1958 season, when the side finished third in the County Championship. Injured for much of the year, he played only 11 out of 28 Championship matches. But he returned fully fit for the 1959 season, though his batting was less impressive in that season and he passed 50 only once.
, who had been Somerset's captain
since 1956, the first professional to hold the job in modern times, stood down from the job. Candidates to succeed Tremlett included Colin McCool
and Bill Alley
, two Australians associated with Somerset's recent successes, but 44 and 41 years old respectively. Stephenson, at 39, was not much younger, but was chosen.
Combative and chatty, Stephenson stayed in the captain's job for five seasons and was successful: in 1963 he led the side to third place in the County Championship, equalling the best-ever and the team, which had relied across the 1950s primarily on spin for wickets, developed in Ken Palmer
and Fred Rumsey
two fast bowlers good enough to play fleetingly for England.
Stephenson's own contribution behind the wicket and with the bat remained high. He hit his own highest score, an unbeaten 147 in 200 minutes with one six and 19 fours, against Nottinghamshire
at Bath in 1962, within two weeks of his 42nd birthday.
, who had deputised for Stephenson in the injury-hit 1958 season, returned to keep wicket.
Stephenson appears to have expected to return to both the captaincy and the wicketkeeping role, but he was unable to do so in the 1964 season. At the end of the season Somerset appointed Colin Atkinson
, the Millfield schoolmaster (and a fellow Teessider) as captain for the 1965 season and recruited Geoff Clayton
, the Lancashire
wicketkeeper, as first-choice. Stephenson retired from first-class cricket, apparently with some reluctance.
Stephenson continued to live in Taunton, but from 1965 to 1968 played regular Minor Counties cricket for Dorset
. "(He) didn't return too often to the County Ground," says one account.
He made his wicketkeeping reputation standing up to the stumps and taking tricky spin bowling from Johnny Lawrence
, Ellis Robinson
, and later Colin McCool
, but in his 40s he proved he was no slouch standing back to faster bowlers as Somerset's attack turned successfully to seam in the early 1960s. He set the county records for stumpings in a season, in 1949, and for catches in a season, in 1963, as well as for the most dismissals in a season. He also set the county record for the number of career dismissals, was the first to make six dismissals in an innings, and equalled the county record of nine dismissals in a match.
He was highly rated by his colleagues as a wicketkeeper. McCool, in his memoirs Cricket is a Game, wrote: "Steve has as good a pair of wicket-keeping hands as I have seen in the business. If I had to choose between him and Godfrey Evans
, I would go for him every time." The fast-medium bowler Ken Biddulph
, also from County Durham, called Stephenson a "brilliant keeper: I never saw him have a bad day".
As a batsman, Stephenson was combative and cheeky, always ready for a quick single. He "batted with an exciting, slightly reckless relish that seldom rejected the gamble of a perilously possible single," says the history of Somerset cricket. As late as his final full season in 1963, he set a ninth-wicket partnership record of 183 with Chris Greetham
that has been equalled, but not beaten, for Somerset, making 80 when batting at No 10 at Weston-super-Mare
against Leicestershire
.
Stephenson was very much one of the professionals and even as captain had little time for the stuffier county cricket element. There were run-ins with the county establishment. Cricket writer David Foot in an obituary of Stephenson reported "one corrosive exchange with the county chairman, Bunty Longrigg
". Foot reports Stephenson as saying: "It was my fifth year in charge and we'd got to the Bath Festival. The chairman approached me and asked me bluntly who I thought we should leave out to make way for an amateur or two. I bristled and told him that if he had plans to make changes, he had better skipper the county himself."
Foot goes on: "When it came to the annual dinner - and tributes were expected for Steve's outstanding record and longevity with the team - Longrigg said nothing. It was a significant snub."
As a captain, Stephenson was "canny rather than memorably imaginative". "Stephenson couldn't be seriously faulted tactically," says the county's history, also by Foot. "He got the best out of his team. It wasn't always easy."
First-class cricket
First-class cricket is a class of cricket that consists of matches of three or more days' scheduled duration, that are between two sides of eleven players and are officially adjudged first-class by virtue of the standard of the competing teams...
cricketer
Cricketer
A cricketer is a person who plays the sport of cricket. Official and long-established cricket publications prefer the traditional word "cricketer" over the rarely used term "cricket player"....
who played for Somerset
Somerset County Cricket Club
Somerset County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Somerset...
. He captained Somerset from 1960 until his retirement in 1964.
Stephenson is easily the most successful wicket-keeper
Wicket-keeper
The wicket-keeper in the sport of cricket is the player on the fielding side who stands behind the wicket or stumps being guarded by the batsman currently on strike...
in history for Somerset, and is the county's only cricketer to have taken 1000 dismissals. He also holds the county record for the most stumpings in a season as well as most catches in a season.
Early career
Stephenson was born (as William Harold Stephenson) in Haverton HillHaverton Hill
Haverton Hill is an area within the borough of Stockton-on-Tees and ceremonial county of County Durham, England.It is situated to the north of the River Tees, near Billingham. The A1046 is the main road linking to Stockton and the A19 in the west and Port Clarence and the A178 in the east.- History...
, Stockton-on-Tees
Stockton-on-Tees
Stockton-on-Tees is a market town in north east England. It is the major settlement in the unitary authority and borough of Stockton-on-Tees. For ceremonial purposes, the borough is split between County Durham and North Yorkshire as it also incorporates a number of smaller towns including...
, County Durham
County Durham
County Durham is a ceremonial county and unitary district in north east England. The county town is Durham. The largest settlement in the ceremonial county is the town of Darlington...
and played Minor Counties cricket for Durham
Durham County Cricket Club
Durham County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh national cricket structure, representing the historic county of Durham. Its limited overs team is called the Durham Dynamos. Their kit colours are blue with yellow trim and the shirt sponsor was...
in 1947, succeeding Dick Spooner
Dick Spooner
Richard Thompson Spooner was an English cricketer, who played for Warwickshire and England.A latecomer who did not play first-class cricket until he was 28, Spooner was a quick-witted left-handed batsman who could open the innings or bat further down the order, and a reliable wicket-keeper whose...
, who had been recruited by Warwickshire
Warwickshire County Cricket Club
Warwickshire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Warwickshire. Its limited overs team is called the Warwickshire Bears. Their kit colours are black and gold and the shirt sponsor...
, as wicketkeeper. Stephenson in turn was recruited by Somerset in 1948, having been recommended to the county by Micky Walford, the amateur batsman and schoolmaster who also came from Stockton.
County wicketkeeper
Stephenson joined Somerset for the 1948 season, but played in only eight matches. He kept wicket in only two of them, and was used mostly as an opening batsman, not with any great success.The following season, however, he succeeded the long-serving Wally Luckes
Wally Luckes
Walter Thomas "Wally" Luckes, born in Lambeth, London on 1 January 1901 and died at Bridgwater, Somerset on 27 October 1982, was a cricketer who played for Somerset....
as the regular wicketkeeper and, despite missing half a dozen matches, he set a new county record for dismissals, with 39 catches and 44 stumpings for Somerset (plus two more catches in an end-of-season representative match). The number of stumpings remains a Somerset record. Wisden
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom...
said that he "exceeded expectations" and added: "Some of his stumpings off the slow bowlers were remarkably clever and quick enough to suggest optical tests for umpires." He also made more than 700 runs, batting mostly down the batting order at No 7 or No 8.
That 1949 season set the pattern for Stephenson: he was at or near the top of the wicketkeepers' lists for dismissals for the next decade, setting the Somerset record with 86 dismissals in 1954. Somerset wicketkeepers have made 70 or more dismissals in a season 16 times, and Stephenson accounts for exactly half of those.
In addition, his batting developed. In 1952, he made the first of what would prove to be seven career centuries with 114 against Glamorgan
Glamorgan County Cricket Club
Glamorgan County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh national cricket structure, representing the historic county of Glamorgan aka Glamorganshire . Glamorgan CCC is the only Welsh first-class cricket club. Glamorgan CCC have won the English County...
at Swansea
St Helens Rugby and Cricket Ground
St. Helen's Rugby and Cricket Ground is a spectator venue in Swansea, Wales. It is used for both rugby and cricket.It is owned and operated by the City and County of Swansea council and is also used to host the local annual Guy Fawkes night fireworks display.-History:Since the ground opened in...
, with four sixes and 11 fours. He passed 1,000 runs for the season for the first time in 1952, and then did so in each of the next four seasons. In the mid-1950s, he was batting higher in the order, often at No 3, though this was partly due to the weakness of the Somerset side, which finished bottom of the County Championship
County Championship
The County Championship is the domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales...
for four consecutive seasons from 1952 to 1955.
Playing for a weak team may not have helped Stephenson's representative career, though England
English cricket team
The England and Wales cricket team is a cricket team which represents England and Wales. Until 1992 it also represented Scotland. Since 1 January 1997 it has been governed by the England and Wales Cricket Board , having been previously governed by Marylebone Cricket Club from 1903 until the end...
were not short of outstanding wicketkeepers in this period. The nearest he got to Test
Test cricket
Test cricket is the longest form of the sport of cricket. Test matches are played between national representative teams with "Test status", as determined by the International Cricket Council , with four innings played between two teams of 11 players over a period of up to a maximum five days...
honours was as part of a Commonwealth team that toured India in 1950-51, when he took part in two of the "unofficial Tests" and headed the batting averages for the tour as a whole. In 1955-56 he toured Pakistan with an MCC
Marylebone Cricket Club
Marylebone Cricket Club is a cricket club in London founded in 1787. Its influence and longevity now witness it as a private members' club dedicated to the development of cricket. It owns, and is based at, Lord's Cricket Ground in St John's Wood, London NW8. MCC was formerly the governing body of...
"A" side and played in two of the "representative matches" against what was close to being a full Pakistan Test side.
Stephenson was first-choice wicketkeeper for Somerset throughout the 1950s, but he missed much of the county's most successful season for 66 years: the 1958 season, when the side finished third in the County Championship. Injured for much of the year, he played only 11 out of 28 Championship matches. But he returned fully fit for the 1959 season, though his batting was less impressive in that season and he passed 50 only once.
Somerset captain
At end of the 1959 season, Maurice TremlettMaurice Tremlett
Maurice Fletcher Tremlett was an English cricketer, who played for Somerset, Central Districts and England....
, who had been Somerset's captain
Captain (cricket)
The captain of a cricket team often referred to as the skipper is the appointed leader, having several additional roles and responsibilities over and above those of a regular player...
since 1956, the first professional to hold the job in modern times, stood down from the job. Candidates to succeed Tremlett included Colin McCool
Colin McCool
Colin Leslie McCool was an Australian cricketer who played in 14 Tests from 1946 to 1950. McCool, born in Paddington, New South Wales, was an all-rounder who bowled leg spin and googlies with a round arm action and as a lower order batsman was regarded as effective square of the wicket and against...
and Bill Alley
Bill Alley
William Edward Alley was a cricketer who played 400 first-class matches for New South Wales, Somerset and a Commonwealth XI....
, two Australians associated with Somerset's recent successes, but 44 and 41 years old respectively. Stephenson, at 39, was not much younger, but was chosen.
Combative and chatty, Stephenson stayed in the captain's job for five seasons and was successful: in 1963 he led the side to third place in the County Championship, equalling the best-ever and the team, which had relied across the 1950s primarily on spin for wickets, developed in Ken Palmer
Ken Palmer
Ken Palmer is an English former cricketer and umpire, who played in one Test in 1965, and umpired twenty two Tests and twenty three ODIs from 1977 to 2001.-Life and career:...
and Fred Rumsey
Fred Rumsey
Frederick Edward Rumsey is an English former cricketer, who played five Test matches for England in the mid 1960s. He is also notable for having played almost exclusively in one-day cricket for the last five years of his career...
two fast bowlers good enough to play fleetingly for England.
Stephenson's own contribution behind the wicket and with the bat remained high. He hit his own highest score, an unbeaten 147 in 200 minutes with one six and 19 fours, against Nottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club
Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Nottinghamshire, and the current county champions. Its limited overs team is called the Nottinghamshire Outlaws...
at Bath in 1962, within two weeks of his 42nd birthday.
The end of his career
Stephenson played in the first few first-class matches of the 1964 season as Somerset captain and wicketkeeper, but was then injured. In his absence, the side was captained by the veteran Australian Alley, and Peter EelePeter Eele
Peter James Eele, born at Taunton, Somerset on 27 January 1935, was a cricketer who played for Somerset and later acted as an umpire in first-class matches in England.Eele was a lower-order left-handed batsman and a wicketkeeper...
, who had deputised for Stephenson in the injury-hit 1958 season, returned to keep wicket.
Stephenson appears to have expected to return to both the captaincy and the wicketkeeping role, but he was unable to do so in the 1964 season. At the end of the season Somerset appointed Colin Atkinson
Colin Atkinson
Colin Ronald Michael Atkinson CBE - Cricketer, schoolmaster and headmaster of Millfield School....
, the Millfield schoolmaster (and a fellow Teessider) as captain for the 1965 season and recruited Geoff Clayton
Geoff Clayton
Geoffrey Clayton, born 3 February 1938 at Mossley, Lancashire, played first-class and List A cricket for Lancashire and Somerset between 1959 and 1967. He was a lower-order batsman and a wicketkeeper....
, the Lancashire
Lancashire County Cricket Club
Lancashire County Cricket Club represents the historic county of Lancashire in cricket's County Championship. The club was founded in 1864 as a successor to Manchester Cricket Club and has played at Old Trafford since then...
wicketkeeper, as first-choice. Stephenson retired from first-class cricket, apparently with some reluctance.
Stephenson continued to live in Taunton, but from 1965 to 1968 played regular Minor Counties cricket for Dorset
Dorset County Cricket Club
Dorset County Cricket Club is one of the county clubs which make up the Minor Counties in the English domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Dorset and playing in the Minor Counties Championship and the MCCA Knockout Trophy...
. "(He) didn't return too often to the County Ground," says one account.
Playing style and personality
A dapper, chatty cricketer with pads that always appeared a size too big for him, Stephenson was known throughout his county career as "Steve". He was a character in a side that, in Somerset's bad days of the 1950s, was unusually short of personalities.He made his wicketkeeping reputation standing up to the stumps and taking tricky spin bowling from Johnny Lawrence
Johnny Lawrence
John Lawrence, known as "Johnny", was a diminutive Yorkshire-born all-round cricketer whose middle or lower order batting and leg-break and googly bowling were of great importance to Somerset in the 10 cricket seasons immediately after the Second World War.-Early career and playing style:Born at...
, Ellis Robinson
Ellis Robinson
Ellis Pembroke Robinson was a first-class cricketer who took over 1,000 first-class wickets for Yorkshire from 1934 to 1949, and Somerset from 1950 to 1952.-Early life:...
, and later Colin McCool
Colin McCool
Colin Leslie McCool was an Australian cricketer who played in 14 Tests from 1946 to 1950. McCool, born in Paddington, New South Wales, was an all-rounder who bowled leg spin and googlies with a round arm action and as a lower order batsman was regarded as effective square of the wicket and against...
, but in his 40s he proved he was no slouch standing back to faster bowlers as Somerset's attack turned successfully to seam in the early 1960s. He set the county records for stumpings in a season, in 1949, and for catches in a season, in 1963, as well as for the most dismissals in a season. He also set the county record for the number of career dismissals, was the first to make six dismissals in an innings, and equalled the county record of nine dismissals in a match.
He was highly rated by his colleagues as a wicketkeeper. McCool, in his memoirs Cricket is a Game, wrote: "Steve has as good a pair of wicket-keeping hands as I have seen in the business. If I had to choose between him and Godfrey Evans
Godfrey Evans
Thomas Godfrey Evans CBE was an English cricketer who played for Kent and England.Described by Wisden as 'arguably the best wicket-keeper the game has ever seen', Evans collected 219 dismissals in 91 Test match appearances between 1946 and 1959 and a total of 1066 in all first-class matches...
, I would go for him every time." The fast-medium bowler Ken Biddulph
Ken Biddulph
Kenneth David Biddulph played first-class cricket for Somerset between 1955 and 1961, and later appeared in List A cricket matches while playing Minor Counties cricket for Durham between 1962 and 1972...
, also from County Durham, called Stephenson a "brilliant keeper: I never saw him have a bad day".
As a batsman, Stephenson was combative and cheeky, always ready for a quick single. He "batted with an exciting, slightly reckless relish that seldom rejected the gamble of a perilously possible single," says the history of Somerset cricket. As late as his final full season in 1963, he set a ninth-wicket partnership record of 183 with Chris Greetham
Chris Greetham
Christopher Herbert Millington Greetham, born at Wargrave, Berkshire on 28 August 1936, played first-class cricket for Somerset from 1957 to 1966 as a middle-order batsman and a medium-pace bowler...
that has been equalled, but not beaten, for Somerset, making 80 when batting at No 10 at Weston-super-Mare
Weston-super-Mare
Weston-super-Mare is a seaside resort, town and civil parish in the unitary authority of North Somerset, which is within the ceremonial county of Somerset, England. It is located on the Bristol Channel coast, south west of Bristol, spanning the coast between the bounding high ground of Worlebury...
against Leicestershire
Leicestershire County Cricket Club
Leicestershire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh national cricket structure, representing the historic county of Leicestershire. It has also been representative of the county of Rutland....
.
Stephenson was very much one of the professionals and even as captain had little time for the stuffier county cricket element. There were run-ins with the county establishment. Cricket writer David Foot in an obituary of Stephenson reported "one corrosive exchange with the county chairman, Bunty Longrigg
Bunty Longrigg
Edmund Fallowfield Longrigg, usually known as "Bunty", born at Batheaston, Somerset on 16 April 1906 and died at Bath, Somerset on 23 July 1974, played cricket for Somerset and Cambridge University...
". Foot reports Stephenson as saying: "It was my fifth year in charge and we'd got to the Bath Festival. The chairman approached me and asked me bluntly who I thought we should leave out to make way for an amateur or two. I bristled and told him that if he had plans to make changes, he had better skipper the county himself."
Foot goes on: "When it came to the annual dinner - and tributes were expected for Steve's outstanding record and longevity with the team - Longrigg said nothing. It was a significant snub."
As a captain, Stephenson was "canny rather than memorably imaginative". "Stephenson couldn't be seriously faulted tactically," says the county's history, also by Foot. "He got the best out of his team. It wasn't always easy."