Brian Close, who has died aged 84, was the youngest cricketer ever to play for England; later, he led Yorkshire to four championship titles, and in 1966 was summoned to captain his country.
Yet Close’s progress in the game was never straightforward. The brilliant young all-rounder, whose left-handed batting initially evoked comparisons with that of Frank Woolley, hardened into a battle-scarred veteran, frequently mired in controversy .
The abiding image of Close comes from his last Test match, against the West Indies at Old Trafford in 1976. On the Saturday evening, he and John Edrich endured the searing pace and hostility of Andy Roberts, Michael Holding and Wayne Daniel for 80 minutes .
Spectators winced as, again and again, the ball thudded into the batsmen, whose combined age was 84 (Close 45, Edrich 39). More than once Close buckled at the knees , yet he refused to rub the spot where he had been hit. Pain, he insisted, was only in the mind. Team-mates who saw Close’s battered torso “as if someone had forced handfuls of marbles beneath his skin” – begged to differ. But no one ever doubted his courage, which sometimes bordered on recklessness.
In order to exert pressure on batsmen, Close would position himself suicidally close at silly mid-off or short-leg. “Catch it,” he would shout as the ball cannoned off his balding pate from full-blooded hits. On one occasion the rebound was snapped up at second slip, after striking Close at short-leg.
“What if you’d been hit in the throat?”, an astounded fieldsman asked. “He’d have been caught in the gully,” Close returned.
He played county cricket for 28 years, between 1949 and 1977, first for Yorkshire and then, from 1971, for Somerset. Statistically he achieved only moderate success with the bat. Indeed, it was not until he moved to Somerset that (on three occasions) he averaged over 40 in a season.
Brian Close batting in 1976
Close never commanded a regular and certain place in the England side, and over his long career played in only 22 Tests. In 37 innings for England he managed no more than four 50s, and the 887 runs he scored were amassed at the indifferent average of 25.34. As a Test bowler he took 18 wickets at 29.55 apiece.
It was Close’s character and presence , rather than his playing record, that made him the most successful county captain of his day. Yorkshire finished top of the championship table in 1963, 1966, 1967 and 1968.
During the 1950s the atmosphere in the Yorkshire dressing room had been poisonous. Ray Illingworth remembered continual rows, including an occasion when Close threatened to smash up his team-mate Johnny Wardle . Morale improved somewhat under the captaincies of Ronnie Burnett (1959) and Vic Wilson (1960-62). In those four years Yorkshire won three championships, and came second in 1961.
Close, appointed skipper in 1963, maintained this predominance. While inspiring both fear and respect, he gave wholehearted loyalty to players who had gained his confidence. As Richard Hutton put it, the trust he generated “made his verbal ear-bashings more tolerable”.
Close also proved a shrewd judge of talent. Whereas Vic Wilson had advised the Yorkshire committee not to engage a young man called Geoffrey Boycott, Close insisted – perhaps to his subsequent regret – that he should be retained.
Yorkshire were so successful under Close that when, in 1966, England were being massacred by the West Indies, the selectors called him up as captain in the hope of salvaging some honour in the fifth Test at the Oval. He duly led England to victory by an innings and 34 runs.
Brian Close going out to bat for Yorkshire in 1967
Certainly Close was fortunate that Tom Graveney hit his best form with an imperious 165. But there was no mistaking the change in England’s attitude. When Charlie Griffith, the West Indian fast bowler, was hit on the finger while batting, he threatened dire revenge on the English batsmen. “Get on with the bloody game, Charlie,” Close told him. “You’re ready enough to dish it out, but when it comes to taking it it’s another tale altogether.”
Close continued to bring England success in 1967, when he captained them to three victories against India, and two out of three (with one match drawn) against Pakistan. The selectors, however, always harboured doubts about Close’s rough ways, and in particular worried about allowing him to take charge of the potentially explosive tour to the West Indies in 1967-68. And if they wanted excuses to dismiss him, Close duly obliged.
Just before the last Test against Pakistan, he was accused of deliberately adopting time-wasting tactics to enable Yorkshire to draw against Warwickshire. In addition The People charged him with having seized and angrily shaken a spectator in the members’ enclosure at Edgbaston.
Close denied the shaking, and remained unrepentant about time-wasting. The authorities at Lord’s, however, were unimpressed, and he was severely censured.
Shortly afterwards it was announced that Close would not be leading England in the West Indies. This was a shattering blow. “I may not bruise easily,” he wrote years later, “but I do bleed. It was all so bloody, horribly unfair.”
Dennis Brian Close was born at Rawdon, Leeds, on February 24 1931, the second of six children. His father was well known as a wicketkeeper in the Bradford League.
At Aireborough Grammar School Brian proved so able a student that his headmaster wanted him to read Mathematics at Cambridge.
As a teenager, however, he had impressed the hardbitten Yorkshire professionals in the nets at Headingley. In the winter football seemed to offer even better prospects. Close did so well as an inside forward in the Leeds United junior side that he was selected for an England Youth XI against Scotland.
On leaving school in 1948, he signed a contract with Leeds and was soon doing well in the reserves. So when, early in 1949, he was called up for National Service in the Royal Corps of Signals at Catterick, he identified himself as “professional footballer”.
Brian Close in 1949
Chance, however, reversed his priorities. An injury on the field meant that his Army service was deferred. In consequence he was available in May 1949 to play for Yorkshire against Cambridge University – a match in which Freddie Trueman also made his first-class debut.
Close opened the bowling with Trueman, took four wickets in the match, and knocked up a useful 28. It was enough to keep him in the Yorkshire side; and Maurice Wells, MP for Bradford Central, managed to get his call-up further deferred.
In that glorious first season Close not only achieved the double of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets; he was chosen for the third Test against New Zealand at Old Trafford .
Though he failed to score, and took only one wicket, he earned praise from Wisden for obeying instructions to hit out against his own interests.
When Close finally began his National Service in October 1949, he was given 48-hour weekend passes so that he could play for Leeds Reserves. In November, however, he sustained a bad thigh injury which kept him out of football for months. Leeds gave him a free transfer, and in the spring of 1950 he signed for Arsenal.
Close’s military duties restricted him to only one game for Yorkshire in 1950, but he took plenty of wickets for the Army, and against Cambridge University accounted for David Sheppard, Hubert Doggart and Peter May.
When he was selected to tour Australia with Freddie Brown’s team, the Army graciously gave him leave. Early in the tour Close made a century against Western Australia; later he managed another against the Southern Districts of New South Wales. Yet the tour was a disaster for him.
Brian Close going out to the field in 1961
It was not just that his bowling proved too inaccurate to trouble the Australians, or that his propensity for the sweep made it easy for opponents to plot his downfall as a batsman , it was the hostility he received in the dressing-room from team-mates who judged him to be at once conceited and gauche. “I was sick with misery,” he recalled in his memoirs, I Don’t Bruise Easily (1978).
He related how Ian Johnson, one of the Australian players, had noted his depression and told Freddie Brown that he needed help. “Let the ****** stew,” Brown returned.
Back in England, in 1951 Close showed his resilience by scoring heavily for the Army and Combined Services. And when, next year, he returned to the Yorkshire side, he once more achieved the double.
Early in 1952 he had been selected to play in Arsenal’s first team, only to be foiled by injury. When he was unable to turn out in the Reserves Cup Final, because the game clashed with the Yorkshire v MCC match at Lord’s, Close was given a free transfer. He signed for Bradford City, for whom he scored nine goals in seven games before a torn cartilage finally put paid to his footballing career – and also removed him from county cricket in 1953.
Once more he made a successful comeback, and in 1955 returned to the England side for the last Test against South Africa: the 32 he made as an opener was the top score in England’s first innings. Close also played in two matches against the West Indies in 1957, and at Headingley in 1959 took four for 35 in India’s second innings.
Recalled once more to play against Australia at Old Trafford in 1961, he incurred fierce criticism after being caught from a cross-batted swipe at one of Richie Benaud’s leg-breaks as England failed to chase a winning total of 256 in 230 minutes.
For the next two years the Test selectors ignored him. In 1963, however, Ted Dexter insisted that he should be brought back to counter the menace of the West Indian fast bowlers Wes Hall and Charlie Griffith.
For the first time Close played in a full series, scoring 315 runs and doing particularly well at Lord’s, where he made a gallant 70 in the second innings. His tactic of advancing down the pitch against Wes Hall looked suicidal, but succeeded in putting the great fast bowler off his stride.
Nevertheless Close again found himself ignored by the England selectors, until summoned to the captaincy in 1966. The loss of that role, however, did not seem to affect his leadership at Yorkshire.
It was a shock when, at the end of the 1970 season, Close was unceremoniously sacked as county captain. Various excuses were offered, but the real reason was that he had never troubled to treat the county committee with any tact. It was Yorkshire, however, who suffered: after Close’s departure the county would wait 30 years for another championship title.
Close went to Somerset, where he discovered the best form of his career with the bat. As captain from 1972 to 1977 he helped to develop the talents of Ian Botham and Viv Richards, and succeeded in lifting the county to fifth place in 1974 and fourth in 1977.
In 1976 he was once more summoned by the England selectors to fend off the fury of the West Indies. He did especially well in the second Test at Lord’s, scoring 60 and 46, before his magnificently brave swansong at Old Trafford.
At Taunton, he continued to dominate. One Somerset batsman, having got out in a manner against which Close had specifically warned him, elected to return to the pavilion through a back window, rather than walk up the pavilion steps to face his captain’s ire.
Brian Close in action in 1984
Viv Richards later told how, after Allan Jones had allowed Leicestershire to win a match by scoring 12 off the last two balls, his team-mates formed a cordon to protect him from the skipper’s assault.
Close retired from regular first-class cricket in 1977, though he continued to play in the Scarborough Festival until 1986 .
In a total of 786 first-class matches, Brian Close scored 33,994 runs (including 52 centuries) at an average of 33.29 (31.94 for Yorkshire; 39.41 for Somerset). As a bowler he took 1,167 wickets at 26.39 each. He held 813 catches, placing him fourth on the all-time list, after Frank Woolley, W G Grace, Tony Lock and Walter Hammond. He even made one stumping.
His highly competitive spirit never forbade a drink with the opposition. “Bomber” Wells recalled how, when Gloucestershire played Yorkshire in the 1950s, “you’d split into two parties. Fred (Trueman) would be one end of the bar, Closey up the other. You could have half an hour of Closey lambasting Fred, then when you got fed up with that you could go and hear Fred lambasting Closey.”
Unlike many professional cricketers Close did not lose his enthusiasm for donning his flannels in retirement. Indeed, he was still to be seen at the crease in 2000.
He was also a fine golfer, who learnt to play the game right-handed so as not to affect his batting, and soon had a handicap of three. Later he performed as well as a left-hander, and once went round in 76, hitting the ball alternately left- and right-handed.
At the end of the 1970s Close served as an England selector. Back at Yorkshire, he became chairman of the cricket committee in 1984, attracting much controversy in the anti-Boycott cause. Later, he led the Yorkshire Academy side. “Doesn’t Mr Close swear a lot?” the young Ryan Sidebottom observed.
Brian Close was appointed CBE in 1975. He is survived by his wife Vivienne, whom he married in 1968, and by their son and daughter.
Brian Close, born February 24 1931, died September 14 2015
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