Matthew Engel, a former editor of the Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack (1993–2000 and 2004–2007), took a trip down memory lane when he attended the 50th anniversary of the Professional Cricketers’ Association (PCA).
Matthew Engel began collecting cricketers’ autographs before the invention of the PCA, but gave up when he started reporting the game in 1972.
Long before the start of play, the autograph collectors were there in force outside the big marquee. These were not, I thought to myself, the dressing room johnnies of my era. Now the huntsmen were as old as their quarry. And then I realised. That’s precisely who they were: the boys of half a century ago, still following the hobby of their youth, politely accosting the ageing cricketers as they walked – often stiffly – from the car park to join their comrades.
It was day two of the Cheltenham Festival, the day the Professional Cricketers’ Association held their annual gathering – the national version of the counties’ old players’ lunches which have become a yearly fixture on the circuit. This reunion, however, was special: the 50th anniversary of the PCA, founded in 1967 when Fred Rumsey, then of Somerset, summoned a representative from each county to London.
Six weeks later, a week after his 90th, the news broke that Don Shepherd had died. In 2018, his name will be read out, and there will be sadness at his absence. But he lived the contented life of a fulfilled county cricketer. And, as he said to me in that tent last summer, he was a very lucky boy.
