71 Facts About Brian Close

Dennis Brian Close, was an English first-class cricketer.

Brian Close later went on to captain Somerset, where he is widely credited with developing the county into a hard-playing team, and helping to mould Viv Richards and Ian Botham into the successful players they became.

Brian Close was noted, as a batsman, for standing up to intimidatory bowling, letting the ball hit his unprotected torso rather than flinching.

Brian Close was known as a cricketing gambler; he was prepared to take risks and to court controversy throughout his career.

Brian Close was serving a "confined to barracks" punishment during his military service when selected for his first international cricket tour to Australia in 1950, was sacked as England captain for timewasting, and later sacked by Yorkshire for his lukewarm attitude to one-day cricket.

Brian Close was accused of not giving enough support to younger Yorkshire cricketers.

Brian Close attracted further criticism by touring apartheid-era South Africa and white-minority-controlled Rhodesia with private teams.

Brian Close was born into a working class family in Rawdon, West Riding of Yorkshire, around 7 miles west of Leeds, on 24 February 1931.

Brian Close's parents were Harry, a weaver, and Esther.

Brian Close was the second eldest of five boys and a girl.

At Rawdon Littlemoor Primary School, Brian Close was taught by Grace Verity, Hedley's sister, and he was friends with two of his children, Wilfred and Douglas.

The school went unbeaten in the six cricketing summers while Brian Close was there, and the school's sport's master arranged for him to receive coaching from George Hirst, a former England international who coached Yorkshire.

Brian Close dominated junior level cricket in the area; he joined Rawdon Cricket Club in 1942, when he was eleven years of age, and was almost immediately selected to play for both the under-18 side and the second team.

Brian Close was proficient at football, and at the age of fourteen, he was signed as an amateur by Leeds United.

In February 1949, Brian Close underwent a medical examination with the British Army, but due to an injury he had suffered playing football, his call-up was delayed by a few months, allowing him to continue into pre-season training with Yorkshire.

Brian Close impressed the Yorkshire hierarchy enough for his trial to be extended into the County Championship season; Bill Bowes, one of Yorkshire's coaches, declared that he was the "natural successor to the veteran all-rounder Frank Smailes".

Brian Close continued to perform well, particularly his bowling; in his fifth first-class game, against Essex, Brian Close took five for 58 in Essex's first innings, then top-scored with an undefeated 88 runs in the Yorkshire innings.

Unofficially, this prestigious match served as a Test match trial, and Brian Close scored 65 runs, the most amongst the Players, in what was described as a "most commendable performance" by The Times.

When he reached his half-century he was congratulated by the Gentlemen's wicket-keeper, Billy Griffith, who said: "Well played, Brian", to which Close responded: "Thank you, Billy".

Brian Close came in to bat when England needed quick runs, his instruction from Freddie Brown, the captain, being to "have a look at a couple and then give it a go".

Brian Close duly played two balls back to the bowler, then hit out for the boundary, only to be caught in the outfield for a score of nought.

Brian Close had previously taken one wicket for 39 runs during the first New Zealand innings.

Brian Close began his National Service on 6 October 1949, in the Royal Corps of Signals at Catterick Army Training Depot.

Brian Close was excused from duties again, but not offered any treatment by the army.

Brian Close returned to fitness in time for the 1950 English cricket season, though little of it was first-class: he appeared for Yorkshire once, and made three first-class appearances for the Combined Services cricket team.

Brian Close was playing plenty of other cricket; he played in inter-services matches during the week, and obtained weekend passes to play league cricket for Leeds on Saturdays and charity matches on Sundays.

Between playing football and cricket, he had little time for anything else, so much so according to Brian Close, he was never given a job in the army, as he would have no time in which to do it.

However, his moment of glory gave rise to controversy, when one pressman found out that Brian Close was "confined to barracks" for disciplinary reasons at the time his call-up was announced: he had absented himself from an army cricket match.

However, Brian Close still toured; his National Service was suspended so that he could do so, as touring sportsmen were considered to be ambassadors for the United Kingdom.

Brian Close was the youngest player on the tour, and had little in common with the rest of the party; by the end, he was not even on talking terms with most of them.

Later in Tasmania, Brian Close was ordered to play despite doctor's advice to rest, and as he tried to nurse his injury he acquired a reputation for malingering and insubordination.

Brian Close was made to play in six of the next seven games.

Immediately after the tour to Australia Brian Close had a good season in 1951, playing for the Combined Services, including a century against the touring South Africans.

Brian Close enjoyed a good 1952 season at Yorkshire, achieving another double, but played no Test cricket.

Brian Close played football, for Bradford City this time, and in doing so picked up a serious knee injury which ended his professional footballing career.

In 1954 Brian Close scored his first first-class century for Yorkshire, an undefeated 123 against the touring Pakistanis.

Brian Close returned to the full England side in 1957, playing in the first two Tests against the West Indies, but did not perform well enough to secure a regular Test place.

Several senior players left the club; Johnny Wardle, Yorkshire's top bowler and Brian Close's preferred choice of captain, was sacked for disciplinary reasons.

Burnet, aided by Brian Close, was successful in 1959, when Yorkshire at last won the county championship.

Brian Close accordingly took a calculated risk, and chose to hit out.

Brian Close took one six off Benaud, but to the tenth ball he faced he played another unorthodox shot which Norman O'Neill caught above his head with two hands.

Purists were outraged, and as England collapsed to 201 all out and a 54 run defeat, Brian Close took most of the blame, with some commentators saying that he should never play for England again.

The answer was that Brian Close had honed them to play the innings required at the right time: when quick runs were required, players did not play for their averages, they played for quick runs.

Brian Close was recalled to the England Test squad in 1963, and played his first full series of five matches, against the West Indies.

When England were pressing for a last-day victory, Brian Close took the battle to the fastest West Indian fast bowlers, Wes Hall and Charlie Griffith, daring to advance down the wicket to them.

Brian Close had been dismissed going for runs to win the game, and his courage earned him many plaudits.

Brian Close had immediate success as Yorkshire captain, winning the County Championship in 1963.

Brian Close's successes saw him named as one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1964, acknowledging his impact on the 1963 season.

Brian Close went on to captain Yorkshire to the county championship in 1966,1967 and 1968.

Brian Close first met his wife Vivien, an air stewardess with BOAC, in Bermuda whilst touring there with Yorkshire in 1964, when she was engaged to someone else.

Brian Close pursued her relentlessly, even though initially she considered him not to be her type.

Brian Close gambled with his love life too: on New Year's Day 1965 he told her that if she didn't agree to marry him, he would never see her again.

Brian Close knew why he had been selected, and why many of his men had been.

Brian Close knew that Sobers was a fine hooker, and he knew how he wanted to approach him, so he asked Snow to bowl a bouncer first up.

Brian Close did not help himself as he personally berated a Warwickshire spectator who he thought had called out something inopportune, though in the event he picked on the wrong man.

In 1969 Brian Close played only 18 county championship games as he was plagued by a calf injury, although he did lead Yorkshire to victory in the one-day Gillette Cup for a second time, the first time being in 1965.

Brian Close always opposed one-day cricket, believing that it lessens players' abilities.

When July 1970 came and went, Brian Close must have thought he was safe.

However, Brian Close offended the Lancashire president, the Honourable Lionel Lister, when Lister entered the away captain's changing room to speak to Brian Close after Lancashire, Yorkshire's archrivals, had beaten them at Old Trafford to retain the one-day John Player League trophy.

Brian Close wrote a letter to Lister apologising, and gave a copy to a Yorkshire committeeman.

In November 1970 Brian Close was summoned to see Sellers, and given the choice of either resigning or being sacked.

Brian Close soon gained the same respect and commitment from his players as he had at Yorkshire.

Robins' tours were the closest thing the South Africa team had to Test cricket at that time, and for his efforts in the first of the tours to South Africa, Brian Close was named as one of the four South African Cricket Annual Cricketers of the Year in 1974.

In 1976, the 45-year-old Brian Close was called up for the first three Tests in England's five-Test series against the West Indies, who were no less ferocious than when Close was battered by them in 1963.

Brian Close went on to play for Todmorden in the Lancashire League.

Brian Close had a stint as an England selector between 1979 and 1981 and in 1984 he was elected to the Yorkshire committee.

Brian Close became chairman of the cricket sub-committee, which led him into more controversy and conflict with the captain, Geoffrey Boycott.

In 1986, aged 55, and playing his last-ever first-class innings, Brian Close needed 10 runs to achieve a career-total 35,000 runs.

Brian Close continued to turn out to help train Yorkshire youngsters, appearing for Yorkshire Colts XI in his seventies, sometimes captaining games and taking the short leg position without a helmet, a position he had taken so many times in the past.

In later years Brian Close played an unnamed member of the crowd in a cricket match alongside Ray Illingworth, in an episode of the TV drama Heartbeat called "Stumped".

Brian Close died of lung cancer on 13 September 2015, aged 84.