[BITList] T'greatest

[John Feltham]

To read this Life of the Day complete with a picture of the subject,
visit http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/lotw/2010-02-06



Trueman,  Frederick Sewards  [Fred]  (1931-2006), cricketer and  
broadcaster, was born on 6 February 1931 at 5 Scotch Springs,  
Stainton, near Maltby, Yorkshire, the fourth of eight children (four  
sons and four daughters) of Alan Thomas Trueman (1891/2-1970),  
colliery hewer, point-to-point jockey, and former stud groom, and his  
wife, Ethel Bennett, nee Stimpson. Sewards was the maiden name of his  
maternal grandmother who delivered him (he was a large baby, weighing  
14 lb 1 oz). Shortly after Trueman's death it was reported that, in  
the 1990s, he had discovered that his biological grandmother was  
Jewish and that his mother, Ethel, had been put up for adoption as a  
child. Despite his father's employment as a miner at the time of his  
birth Trueman always regarded himself as from a country family and  
took great pride in this. In 1943 the Truemans moved to 10 Tennyson  
Road, Maltby, and Fred attended Maltby Hall secondary school. His  
father, a keen weekend player, taught all his sons to play cricket.  
Fred honed his skills as a fast bowler at school until a serious  
injury when aged twelve-he was struck in the groin while batting- 
forced him to miss a year's schooling and two seasons of cricket.

Early playing career

Trueman left school at fourteen and worked variously as an apprentice  
bricklayer and factory hand in Sheffield and Rotherham, before in 1948  
obtaining a job in the tally office at Maltby colliery, where he  
remained until 1951. From the age of fifteen he played cricket for a  
local side, Roche Abbey, and impressive performances led to a  
successful trial with Sheffield United cricket club, which he joined  
at sixteen, progressing to the Sheffield first team in 1948. In the  
same year he took part in the Yorkshire Federation tour of southern  
England and that winter he was coached at Headingley by the former  
Yorkshire and England players Bill Bowes and Arthur Mitchell, who  
noted his strong physique, splendid natural action, and genuine pace.  
He made his first appearance for Yorkshire on 2 May 1949 against  
Cambridge University, when he was erroneously described in Wisden as a  
'slow left-arm spin bowler'. Initially he tended to sacrifice  
consistency for pace. He was ineffective on his county championship  
debut-the 1949 Roses match against Lancashire-though his performances  
improved over the season and on his first appearance at Lord's he took  
8 for 70 in the second innings against the Minor Counties. In 1950,  
though unable to secure a regular place in the Yorkshire first team,  
he was selected for the Rest against England in the test trial at Park  
Avenue, Bradford. He took the wicket of his county team-mate Len  
Hutton and impressed the Yorkshire captain, Norman Yardley, who dubbed  
him Fiery Fred, the nickname by which he was best known throughout his  
career. Though still not certain of selection, he played more  
regularly and effectively for Yorkshire in the 1951 season, winning  
his county cap and taking 90 first-class wickets at an average of  
20.57-including innings figures of 8 for 68 and 8 for 53 in two  
matches against Nottinghamshire.

Yorkshire County Cricket Club's new ruling that capped players would  
be paid during national service prompted Trueman to leave Maltby  
colliery in autumn 1951 and to enter the RAF as a sports storeman  
based at Hemswell, Lincolnshire. A sympathetic commanding officer  
allowed him time to play for Yorkshire, where he now established  
himself as a formidable fast bowler and was widely spoken of as a  
future England player. During his national service he also played  
football for the RAF and Lincoln City reserves. Having taken 32  
wickets in four championship games, in June 1952 he was selected for  
his first test match, against India at Headingley. Trueman's impact  
was dramatic: after 14 balls of their second innings India were 0 for  
4, with Trueman having taken three wickets and the Indian batsmen  
clearly apprehensive about facing his bowling. But despite finishing  
the four-match series with 29 wickets, Trueman's place in the England  
side was not secure. In part this was due to his growing reputation  
for plain speaking and a refusal to behave deferentially to the game's  
governing establishment, many of whom he considered snobbish and  
unduly disrespectful. In the following year he played for England only  
in the final Ashes test, though shortly before this he had been  
selected for the MCC's winter tour of the West Indies. It was there  
that Fiery Fred revealed a less appealing side, combining (on what was  
a politically sensitive tour) blunt language, unruly behaviour, and  
dangerous bowling that led to him being mocked by spectators as Mr  
Bumper Man. That his performance in all but the first test was also  
below standard made this an unhappy and controversial tour, after  
which the MCC committee withheld his good conduct bonus. In 1954, and  
despite an impressive county performance (134 wickets at 15.00),  
Trueman was again omitted from the test sides to face Pakistan and  
Australia, only resuming as an occasional England player in 1955. On  
19 March of that year he married, at All Saints Church, Scarborough,  
Enid Elizabeth Chapman (b. 1931), daughter of Rodney Chapman,  
auctioneer and mayor of Scarborough; the couple had two daughters,  
Karen and Rebecca, and a son, Rodney.

England and Yorkshire

By the spring of 1957 Trueman had played only seven tests since his  
first appearance against India. But an impressive opening to that  
year's county season (during which he took 135 wickets for Yorkshire)  
led to his international recall for the test series against the West  
Indies, with Trueman playing in all five matches and recording figures  
of 9 for 143 at Trent Bridge in July. This was a turning point in his  
England career. Over the next five years he played consistently for  
the national side and reached his peak as a fast bowler of remarkable  
pace, variety, and stamina. At 5 feet 10 inches and weighing 13 stone,  
with a broad bottom and powerful legs, he was the ideal build for a  
fast bowler. Sleeves rolled up and dark hair flailing, he dispatched  
the ball with a classic side-on action that made possible an out- 
swinger that moved away, late and at great speed, from right-handed  
batsmen. He combined this-his self-declared 'special delivery'-with an  
armoury of bouncers, yorkers, in-swingers, and later an effective off- 
break. Trueman's international performances in this period included a  
first overseas Ashes series (1958-9), five tests against India (1959)  
in which he claimed 24 wickets (average 16.00), and a far more  
satisfactory, and well-tempered, Caribbean tour (1959-60) when he took  
21 test wickets, then a record for an English player in the West  
Indies. These years also saw the formation of a highly effective  
bowling partnership with Brian Statham, whose careful, searching  
approach complemented his partner's pace and aggression. Trueman's  
finest display from this period-and perhaps of his career-came in 1961  
during the second innings of the third, Headingley, test against  
Australia. There, on a shortened run-up, he took five wickets without  
conceding a run, finishing the innings with 6 for 30 and match figures  
of 11 for 88. Even so, and much to his disgust, he was dropped for the  
final match of the series.

The late 1950s and early 1960s also saw Yorkshire emerge as the  
dominant force in championship cricket. Between 1959 and 1962 Trueman  
bowled more than 1000 overs a season for his county, and wicket hauls  
of 140, 175, 155, and 153 in these years were a major contribution to  
Yorkshire becoming county champions three times, followed by a further  
championship in 1963. County cricket was at the heart of Trueman's  
twenty-year playing career and playing for Yorkshire-for whom he took  
1488 wickets in 381 matches-was, according to his memoir As It Was  
(2004), an honour he placed above his appearances for England. Yet  
Trueman's relations with his club were seldom straightforward. His  
biographer John Arlott identified Yorkshire's unhappy dressing room  
during the 1950s as a principal cause of Trueman's later difficulties  
with the game's authorities, there being notably uncomfortable  
relationships with his county captains Len Hutton and Vic Wilson. In  
1962 Trueman was sent home by Wilson for arriving late for a  
championship match against Somerset after having captained the last  
ever Gentlemen  Players contest at Lord's. By contrast Wilson's  
successor, Brian Close, sought to stimulate and focus Trueman's  
resentments-what Bill Bowes described as his 'powerful menace'-for the  
good of the team. Appreciating the need to 'sense his moods' and 'to  
get at him', Close would then see Trueman 'work himself up and play  
magnificently'  (private information).

Problems of status and conduct between player and the game's hierarchy  
were also evident in the test arena. Trueman's 8 wickets in the second  
Ashes test at Melbourne (1962-3), for example, were overshadowed by  
disputes over training, mistaken press reports of brawls, and the  
deduction of one-third of his £150 tour bonus following a critical  
report by England's manager, the duke of Norfolk. It was not  
opposition to the establishment per se that soured relations with the  
duke-indeed politically Trueman was and remained a committed  
Conservative-but rather his refusal to be ill treated by those who  
considered themselves his social superiors. That Trueman began his  
2004 memoir with a summary of a fractious exchange with the duke after  
the Melbourne test indicates the importance he attached to his battles  
with the game's elite. Equally characteristic was the friendship that  
subsequently developed between manager and player once social  
pretensions had been put aside. Reflecting on the series Trueman later  
noted Norfolk's invitation to 'Call me Dukie, Fred' as one of the  
highlights of the tour  (As It Was, 286).

300 test wickets

Trueman had initially responded to this latest dispute with the MCC- 
and to what he saw as his unfair treatment by the English press-by  
stating that he would not play again for England. Within months,  
however, any lingering resentment was being channelled more  
productively as he sought to become the dominant figure in a resurgent  
Yorkshire and, in test cricket, to beat a talented West Indian touring  
side that included the excellent fast bowlers Wes Hall and Charlie  
Griffiths. Trueman's success at that summer's Edgbaston test-with  
match figures of 12 for 119-derived from a mature, thoughtful  
performance of 'venom and variety' during which, under cloudy  
conditions, pace gave way to 'late and vicious swing; off the seam it  
cut, like a rattlesnake, this way and that'  (The Times, 10 July  
1963). Trueman finished the 1963 season with the best test, English  
first-class, and Yorkshire bowling figures, as well as two centuries  
with the bat (including one for an England eleven) and another county  
championship. And yet, even while receiving accolades for his  
performance at Edgbaston, it was evident to some that 'under a hot sun  
and a thankless wicket' Trueman 'is no longer the force he  
was'  (ibid.). After a poor performance against Australia in the third  
test at Headingley (July 1964) he was dropped for the fourth match  
with his test tally on 297 wickets. Recalled for the final test at the  
Oval, on 15 August Trueman bowled 26 overs without a wicket before  
taking two in successive deliveries immediately before lunch. Having  
missed the opportunity of a dramatic hat-trick, he claimed a third  
victim later that afternoon and so became the world's first cricketer  
to reach 300 test wickets. For The Times, Trueman's figures did not  
'of themselves prove that he is the finest of all fast bowlers', the  
player having had 'more opportunity ... than most of those before  
him'. But there was also praise for the 'beauty and skill and the  
manliness and the terror of his calling' from a man who 'has never  
compromised his background or tried to be someone other than  
himself'  (The Times, 17 Aug 1964).

Trueman played his sixty-seventh and final international, against New  
Zealand, in the following year, finishing his test career with 307  
wickets. For England he also scored 981 runs, averaging 13.81 an  
innings. Not one to doubt his ability or his contribution to the  
national side, Trueman expected further opportunities to increase his  
total of international wickets, but he was never selected again. Of  
course, his achievement would also have been greater had he played in  
one or more of the six series between 1954 and 1964 (fifty-one  
matches) for which he was available but not selected. He himself  
repeatedly attributed these omissions to selectors' 'personal'  
hostility to his forthright attitudes and direct approach. Trueman's  
record was broken in 1975 by the West Indian Lance Gibbs, and has  
since been passed by more than twenty players. However, at the time of  
his death only two English bowlers (Ian Botham and Bob Willis) had  
bettered 307 test wickets. Moreover, his test average of 21.55 and his  
strike rate of a wicket every 49 balls remain impressive when compared  
with those of later players.

Trueman played for Yorkshire for a further three years and with 111,  
75, and 66 wickets in the 1966, 1967, and 1968 seasons was again  
instrumental in securing three more county championships. Between 1962  
and 1968 he captained Yorkshire on thirty-one occasions, of which the  
most memorable was the victory in July 1968 over Australia by an  
innings and 69 runs at his favourite county ground, Bramall Lane,  
Sheffield. In two decades as a county and international player he took  
2304 first-class wickets (exceeding 100 wickets for Yorkshire in  
twelve seasons), achieved a batting average of 15.56, and made 438  
catches-the majority at short leg.

Later career

Following his retirement from Yorkshire, Trueman played six one-day  
games for Derbyshire in 1972 and remained a regular charity player for  
more than twenty years. However, from the early 1970s it was as a  
cricket commentator and writer (as well as a television 'personality')  
that he made his career and remained a popular public figure. Trueman  
had provided a ghosted column for the Sunday People since 1959, and  
during the 1960s he published several studies of the game, as well as  
The Freddie Trueman Story (1965), the first of three autobiographical  
volumes, which was followed by Ball of Fire (1976) and As It Was  
(2004). Later reminiscences and reflections on the game included On  
Cricket (1977, with John Arlott), Fred Trueman's Cricket Masterpieces  
(1990, with Peter Grosvenor), and Talking Cricket (1997), co-written  
with Don Mosey, with whom he also produced several volumes on  
Yorkshire life, including Fred Trueman's Dales Journeys (1998). For  
more than thirty years until his death Trueman's home in England  
(winters were spent in Spain) was Bay Tree Cottage, Flasby, north of  
Skipton, where he lived with his second wife, Veronica Wilson (b.  
1933), daughter of Michael Lundy, a retired furniture salesman. After  
Trueman's divorce in 1971 from his first wife, Enid (from whom he had  
long been separated), he and Veronica had married on 28 February 1973  
at Staincliffe register office, Skipton; they had no children,  
although Trueman became stepfather to Veronica's son and daughter from  
her previous marriage.

The early 1970s also saw Trueman move into television as the host of  
Indoor League (broadcast within Yorkshire in 1972 and nationally in  
1973-7) in which-with his trademark cardigan, pipe, beer mug, and  
colloquial sign-off, 'I'll sithee'-he championed northern pub games  
like arm-wrestling, skittles, and shove ha'penny. Following an  
unsuccessful spell as a stand-up club entertainer, he also became an  
accomplished and often unstoppable public speaker. A natural  
raconteur, with a love of cricketing anecdotes and jokes, he combined  
a frequently professed love of simple pleasures with flashes of  
showmanship, among them a Rolls Royce with the number plate FST 307. A  
series of myths and tall stories, including a reputation as a heavy  
drinker, also emerged and were repeatedly denied. Trueman's speaking  
engagements, in addition to providing a private income, became a  
regular source of fundraising for his chosen (principally children's)  
charities. Charitable work was a significant part of Trueman's later  
life and it was rumoured that his appointment as OBE in 1989 was as  
much in recognition of this as it was for his cricketing achievements.  
Once described by Harold Wilson as 'the greatest living Yorkshireman',  
Trueman may have been expecting greater official recognition, and  
certainly before this date. His television work on Indoor League was  
followed over the next decade with regular appearances on talk-shows  
and quiz and magazine programmes. In 1990 the marriage of his daughter  
Rebecca to the son of the American actress Raquel Welch gained  
widespread coverage-much of it concerned with the apparent incongruity  
of the couple's in-laws.

Trueman reached many more cricket fans as a member of the BBC's Test  
Match Special commentary team, which he joined in 1974. In this role  
he combined expert analysis and banter with bleak assessments of the  
modern game, his claim not to know 'what's going off out there' being  
a regular lament on the ill-discipline, poor fitness, and questionable  
tactics of many younger players. In doing so Trueman developed a  
reputation as a curmudgeon, though many of his pronouncements were  
delivered with a characteristic dry and quick wit that further served  
to cultivate his uncompromising image. However, he was genuinely  
dismayed and angered when, without warning, he and his regular co- 
commentator Trevor Bailey were dropped by the BBC in 1999. Even  
friends admitted that his contributions to the programme divided  
listeners with many (including members of the English Cricket Board)  
unsympathetic to his negativity, though supporters pointed to his  
eloquent reflections on cricket history and tactics during breaks for  
rain.

Away from the commentary box one dispute, that with the Yorkshire  
batsman Geoff Boycott and his supporters, dominated all others. During  
the 1970s Trueman criticized what he considered to be Boycott's  
selfish playing style and its damaging effect on Yorkshire cricket,  
and so contributed to Boycott losing the captaincy in 1978. Relations  
with the club had remained awkward since his retirement from playing,  
with Trueman resentful at what he saw as the administration's lack of  
respect for his achievements. In 1982 he was elected to the club's  
general committee but two years later a membership vote in favour of  
renewing Boycott's contract prompted his resignation and was followed  
by his defeat at the committee elections in March 1984. Thereafter he  
cut his ties with the club, though he remained an honorary life member  
and was later reconciled with Boycott after the latter's diagnosis  
with cancer in 2002. To players of his own generation Trueman was more  
generous, and he led efforts to raise funds for his former colleague  
Brian Statham after the collapse of a business career.

In the spring of 2006 Trueman, a pipe smoker from the age of  
seventeen, was diagnosed with lung cancer. He died on 1 July 2006 at  
Airedale General Hospital, Steeton, Keighley, Yorkshire, and was  
buried on 6 July at the Priory Church, Bolton Abbey, Yorkshire, where  
he was a regular member of the congregation. News of his death  
coincided with a one-day international between England and Sri Lanka  
at Headingley and prompted appreciative applause and a minute's silence.

John Morgan

Sources  F. Trueman, The Freddie Trueman story (1965) + J. Arlott,  
Fred: portrait of a fast bowler (1971) + F. Trueman, Ball of fire  
(1976) + D. Hodgson, The official history of Yorkshire County Cricket  
Club (1989) + F. Trueman, As it was: the memoirs of Fred Trueman  
(2004) + The Times (3 July 2006) + Daily Telegraph (3 July 2006) + The  
Guardian (3 July 2006) + The Independent (3 July 2006) + Jewish  
Chronicle (7 July 2006) + Wisden (2007) + J. Morgan and D. Joy,  
Trueman's tales: Fiery Fred, Yorkshire's cricketing giant (2007) + P.  
Baxter, Inside the box: my life with Test match special (2009) + WW  
(2006) + personal knowledge (2010) + private information (2010) + b.  
cert. + m. certs. + d. cert.
Archives  FILM BFI NFTVA, Mining Review, M. Stewart (director), 1953 +  
BFI NFTVA, documentary footage + BFI NFTVA, current affairs footage +  
BFI NFTVA, light entertainment footage + BFI NFTVA, Play it again, B.  
Preston (director), Thames Television, 12 Aug 1981 + BFI NFTVA, Close  
encounters: Freddie Trueman, ITV, 2 April 1981 + BFI NFTVA, This is  
your life, R. Mayoh (director), Thames Television, 5 Dec 1979 + BFI  
NFTVA, Past masters: fiery Fred Trueman, G. Ward (director), ITV, 13  
Aug 1981 SOUND BL NSA, performance recordings + BL NSA, documentary  
recordings
Likenesses  W. Suschitzky, bromide print, 1960, NPG · C. Sutton,  
photograph, 1953, Hult. Arch., London [see illus.] · photographs,  
1949-77, Hult. Arch., London · photographs, 1955-96, Getty Images,  
London, Popperfoto · A. Murrell, photographs, 1980-85, Getty Images,  
London · C. Mason, photograph, 1997, Getty Images, London · I. Walton,  
photograph, 2001, Getty Images, London · B. Thomas, photographs,  
1982-94, Getty Images, London, Bob Thomas Sports · H. Philpott,  
photographs, 2001, Getty Images, London, AFP · photographs, 1951-94,  
Photoshot, London · photographs, 1949-2003, PA Photos, London ·  
photographs, 1952-2005, Rex Features, London · Jon, caricatures,  
1961-3, Rex Features, London, Daily Mail · photographs, 1996-2003,  
Camera Press, London · photographs, repro. in Trueman, Ball of fire ·  
A. Ferling, group portraits, oils, MCC collection · R. Spear, oil on  
canvas, 1963, MCC · B. Fantoni, gouache, repro. in The Listener (16  
Aug 1979); priv. coll.