Cricket’s world and Cricket of Gloucestershire in particular are a poorer place after last week of Roger Gibbons at the age of 80. The ongoing success of Gloucestershire CCC Heritage Trust.
Trust is a charity dedicated to preserving the history of the county and was founded in 2014. There at first and later when the Museum and Learning Center opened at the headquarters of the Nevil Road in Bristol, Roger was one of the managers.
It was in the capacity I met a few years ago and in various e -mail exchanges kept me up to date with the occasional posts of the Museum. Roger himself was the author of the best of them and, while there is no complete book in my collection named after him, his monographs were some of the most welcome additions in recent years.
I suppose it should be possible and even possible that Roger had some help with the design and get out of the leaflets, but in their hearts it was the fascinating content. In any case, the monographs covered examples of thoroughly researched and lesser known aspects of the Gloucestershire cricket made the best of the fact that in addition to acquiring the full understanding of his subjects, Roger was also an excellent reason.
Started in 2015 with In memoryA tribute to the Gloucestershire cricket who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country in the Great War. He was reprinted in 2019 along with three others. The monograph that remains my personal favorite concern about the minimally reliable story of a proposed browsing in India by one side of Gloucestershire in 1936/37, The tour that was never.
The other two titles of 2019 were Late in transitA report on the record and play of a record of Western England XI, one side that played through the summers of the 1944 and 1945 war, and Transactions with a dead man. This last title I’m sure would never have seen the daylight if it wasn’t for Roger. It is the story of his discovery that, for many years, historians, archives and statistics of the game had mistakenly recognized a man who made three anonymous performances for Gloucestershire in the Victorian era.
And that was that, for three years until 2022, when four more titles appeared by Roger’s cottage industry. About CB Grace It was the first, a memoir of the younger son of the legendary WG, Charles Butler Grace, who appeared four times in the first -class game. George Pepall: Cricket and CountrymanIt was, like transactions with a dead man, a look at a man who occasionally played for Gloucestershire around the twentieth century turn that had an interesting story.
The other two titles 2022 are fascinating flashes in social and cricket history. Home Holidays: Gloucester Cricket Week 1943 looked at the holiday entertainment available to the population of Gloucestershire during the war and Bristol Cricket Cuplec Cup Cunter 1885-1892 It rebuilds the story something that the club’s Victorian game was finally not ready for a knock out Cup.
Under the circumstances that I probably hoped that, three years later, we would have seen another Roger quartet quartet, but unfortunately, its passage seems to have ended this idea unless there are titles during preparation. If there is honestly I hope they are advanced enough to be able to complete the works and get them in print.
In addition to the historian Roger he was also a collector, but I was told that, unlike some tragic crickets, he was interested in many more than cricket. An accountant from the profession was clearly, one of the Fulsome tributes that appeared in recent days, an excellent company and a good raconteur. I met him once, just last November, at an event organized by Stephen Chalke at the Lansdowne Cricket Club. For me it was an extremely pleasant event, meeting many people I only had with e -mail. At one point, Roger came to me, apologized for a stoppage, but said he wanted to present himself and said that we could undoubtedly be able to talk later. Unfortunately we never did it, and now it will never do it, but even in these short meetings it exudes Bonhomie, good humor and knowledge. His accompanying photo signs some of his monographs Dear Books’ exhibition space; It records it very well.
