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Bowler Billy was bad boy of cricket
Was there really a time when all cricketers were true gentlemen? Peter Seddon’s appraisal of the Derbyshire bowler Billy Bestwick suggests that cricket’s “golden age” wasn’t quite so idyllic after all.
The “enthusiasm” of our first-class cricketers, especially in the small hours, apparently knows no bounds.
And aren’t we always told that “it never happened in the old days” when “all cricketers were gentlemen”?
One word comes to mind in assessing that “golden age” version of cricket – and it’s not bails.
The fact is that the genteel summer game has always had its bad boys, never more clearly illustrated than by the Derbyshire fast bowler Billy Bestwick.
And when he began his career, Queen Victoria was on the throne.
William Bestwick was born in Tag Hill, Heanor, on February 24, 1875, one of 14 children of a miner. Naturally, his background was a tough one.
At the age of 11, he started work down the pit at Coppice Colliery, near his home. The experience rendered him strong, tough and, in time, rather thirsty – but more of that later.
He made his mark in cricket almost by accident. He played football for a ragbag team known as Heanor Salmon Tin Rovers and, in a challenge cricket match between them and Heanor Town, the young Bestwick took eight wickets.
Although he had never played cricket seriously before, that minor success encouraged him to try his luck as a right-arm, fast-medium bowler.
Trials with Warwickshire and Leicestershire followed and, in a Colts match at Leicester, he was spotted by LG Wright, the Derbyshire opening batsman.
Levi Wright moved swiftly in making his recommendation and, when Bestwick was asked to join Derbyshire as a professional, he accepted the invitation with enthusiasm, if not a little surprise, for he had never imagined that “such as he” could enter the county ranks as a paid performer.
The rest is history, as they say. Bestwick made his debut in 1898 and played his final game in 1925, at the age of 50.
In an eventful career, he played 323 first-class matches for Derbyshire, bagging 1,457 wickets at a creditable average of 21.27 runs per wicket.
By the time he retired, he was a legendary figure with a number of records to his name – and that despite always having continued to work down the pit in the winter months.
But the very name Bestwick also brought to mind other feats of a less glorious nature, for Billy Bestwick enjoyed nothing better in life than a hearty drink. And just like his bowling, he went at it hard, fast and in long sessions. Little wonder he courted trouble.
At first, the Derbyshire hierarchy tolerated their star man’s rather wayward behaviour. After all, he took 100 wickets in 1905 and again in 1906 and 1908, figures to be grateful for.
But things first began to go seriously wrong in 1906 when his wife died. Left with a small child, Bestwick was badly affected by the tragic loss. Unable to cope with increased responsibility, his drinking escalated and the consequences proved severe.
In January 1907, Bestwick got involved in a scrap with a man named William Brown at Heanor, after both men had enjoyed a heavy session.
Later the same night, there was another struggle near their homes in which Brown was said to have produced a knife.
Bestwick suffered severe facial wounds and staggered home, only to go out again later, possibly seeking vengeance.
That proved unwise, for Brown’s body was later found, death having been caused by a knife wound.
Unable to give a convincing account of what had actually happened, Bestwick was charged with unlawful killing and remanded in custody at Langley Mill Police Station.
Imagine the newspaper headlines if that happened now. Yet, strangely, the coverage of the affair was quite low key and Bestwick was backed by the Press rather than pilloried.
Some would consider what happened next to be a whitewash. A few days later, an inquest jury concluded that Brown had indeed met his death in a struggle with Bestwick but they further added that the Derbyshire cricketer had acted in self-defence.
After deciding the killing amounted to justifiable homicide, the manslaughter charge against Bestwick was duly dropped.
No further evidence was offered, so a known killer was released a free man. Fortune, and perhaps his sportsman’s reputation, had smiled upon Billy Bestwick.
And so it continued, for Derbyshire stuck by their man when they could so easily have dismissed him.
No doubt they anticipated Bestwick calming down after such a salutary experience. But how wrong they were for, like most of sport’s bad boys, Bestwick soon resumed his ways with all the enthusiasm of old.
The Derbyshire committee never knew what state Bestwick might be in when he arrived at the ground and, least of all, what his form and mood would be.
He moved on, initially to South Wales, where he acquired a second wife and, in 1914, played twice for the Minor Counties side, Glamorgan.
He then returned home and, during the war years, produced astonishing bowling figures in local cricket for Heanor.
And that is where, in all likelihood, Billy Bestwick’s cricketing career should really have finished. But stories like his so often provide a twist.
Time proved a healer and, in 1919, Derbyshire again asked Bestwick, by then aged 44, to join them. This time, mindful of Bestwick’s reputation, the committee even appointed a “minder”, usually his team-mate Arthur Morton, to keep him in check on those long lonely evenings.
After all, good men were short after the war and “better the devil you know...”, as the saying goes.
Make no mistake, this was no ailing oldie out for a sentimental trundle.
After a season bedding in, Bestwick began bowling again with all his old fire and determination, embarking on his own “golden age” in the twilight of his career.
He continued to trouble batsmen and, at Cardiff against Glamorgan in 1921, achieved the bowler’s Holy Grail, when he took all 10 wickets in an innings.
Then aged 46 years and 116 days, he remains the oldest man ever to perform that rare feat. He did it in 19 overs for the cost of only 40 runs – seven of the batsmen were clean bowled.
After that performance, a handsome collection was made for Bestwick at Derbyshire’s next two home games. But, revealing a gentler part of his character, he generously split the proceeds with Arthur Morton, his erstwhile minder, who had been injured in a motorcycle crash.
Had age mellowed him? Not a bit of it. Only a year later, on a legendary day at Worcester in 1922, Bestwick went missing before start of play, turning up only after a substitute had already taken the field.
Disgruntled, and with his vocal chords nicely oiled, Bestwick sat in the pavilion loudly barracking his own side!
They say talent works in strange ways and Billy Bestwick was a prodigious talent with stranger ways than most. Nowadays, the tabloids would have a field day with his antics.
Bestwick retired from playing in 1925 and, perversely for one who had transgressed so many cricket rules, became a first-class umpire sufficiently respected to stand in three Test matches.
Despite his regrettable moments, Bestwick remains a fascinating character and, arguably, the most accomplished bowler in Derbyshire’s cricketing history. So, however we judge his antics, to that alone we should raise a glass.
Billy Bestwick died, aged 63, in Nottingham General Hospital on May 2, 1938.
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