I went to school with his dad, who was a canny footballer and cricketer, and we lived in the same street as his family for about 15 years when I lived in Silksworth..
Benkenstein was an absolute legend. One of my friends is a Yorkshire fan and he used to terrorise them, he reckoned Benks was the one player in the league their fans just accepted was going to grind them down. Blackwell never made the most of himself, he should have made an impact as an international and was expected to do so. Somerset let him go because he didn't apply himself. We gave him a second chance and he was full of talent, an absolute match-winner. His averages were good, if i recall correctly, but the truth is he went missing as times and then won other games for us. You need a balance of reliable players and match-winners, he was in the latter category and when he played well we won things.
Good morning to you, sir. Her indoors always wakes up early and makes a racket till she's had a cup of tea.
I'm coming towards the end of a 12 and a half hour night shift, and just finishing off a few loose ends..I can almost hear my pillow starting to shout for me..
We stopped winning things when we had him, well apart from the first year when we didn't lose. Yes remember those days with Benkenstein when we always used to beat Yorkshire, now you just know that if Bairstow's playing he'll get a 100+ and win them the game.
Heard tales off one or two people about Borthwick's dad being a good player, wasn't Stoneman's dad knocking about at the same level? Know the two of them are good friends.
His dad George played most of his games for Ryhope..They had a cracking side at the time who I used to enjoy going to watch. They had a bowler called Keith Trotter (also a canny footballer who played for the same team as me) who I thought would make the grade at County level, but he never did.
We're not as good at the shorter format (or more probably other teams are more suited to it), but Bell has gone. We would need some almighty collapse from here!
