3, Middlesex had been alerted, and
he fitted in matches for the 2nd XI
around two years of national service
in the Royal Artillery.
Gale struck his maiden first-class
hundred against Sussex in June- In 1958, the county’s first
season without Denis Compton and
Bill Edrich since the mid-1930s,
he was – remarkably – the only
Middlesex player to score a first-
class century. He passed 1,000 runs
six times and, in 1962, the last year
of his amateur status, he struck a
career-best double-hundred against
Glamorgan at Newport.
Gale enjoyed touring overseas,
and scored heavily on MCC tours
of South America, North America,
Netherlands and Ireland, and also
toured with EW Swanton’s XI to
the Caribbean.
Gale, then 33, was due for a benefit
year in 1967, but instead accepted
an offer in the City. He was often
seen out in top hat, socialising
with his old captain John Warr. He
carried on turning out for Finchley,
the XL Club and Free Foresters.
In retirement, he moved to
Pevensey Bay, near Eastbourne, and
spent his last years in a wheelchair.
Bob Gale was born on December 10
1933, and died on April 20 2018Bob Gale
James Coyne on a schoolboy whirlwind
who opened for Middlesex for a decade
and later served as cricket chairmanBob Gale was a tall, attacking
left-hander who formed a
successful opening partnership
with Eric Russell for Middlesex
in the early 1960s.
After giving up county cricket to be
a gilt-edged broker in the City, Gale
returned to Lord’s in 1990 to chair
the Middlesex cricket committee
during Mike Gatting’s time as
captain. It was a dressing room
full of interesting personalities,
and there was something of a
generational split between his era
and theirs. For one, Gale once told
Mike Brearley that he had never
received more than six bouncers
a season. Simon Hughes, this
magazine’s editor, remembers Gale
as a kindly, fair but clubbable man,
who in 1991 broke the news to him
that he was being released.
The following season, Gale fined
and dropped the talented but
combustible Mark Ramprakash
after a series of outbursts,
though not without provocation.
Ramprakash wrote in hisCareer
1956–68
First-class
242 Matches
12,505 Runs
200 High Score
29.35 Average
15 100s
63 50s
126 Catches
47 Wickets
37.19 Average
4-57 BBList A
9 Matches
204 Runs
86 High Score
22.66 Average
2 50s
2 Catchesautobiography that Gale had
reassured him that the disciplinary
action would not imperil his place
on England’s tour of India. But Ted
Dexter, the chairman of selectors,
left Ramprakash out due to
concerns over his temperament.
Gale chaired the panel as Gatting’s
side won two Championships
and one National League before
overseeing the captaincy handover to
Ramprakash in 1997. Gale resigned
the next season with Middlesex
struggling in the Championship.
Gale was born in the pretty
Bedfordshire village of Old Warden,
and was the star batsman in a
Bedford Modern School team
that also featured the future
Test wicketkeeper Geoff Millman
and England scrum-half Dickie
Jeeps. He was rated as the
outstanding public school batsman
in the mid-1950s, and spent an
unprecedented five years in the 1st
XI, three as captain, though EM
Wellings, Wisden’s public schools
correspondent, considered that he
had “stayed too long at school to
benefit his cricket” and “gave the
impression of having been over-
coached... at Lord’s”.
In his last year, Gale captained The
Rest against Southern Schools at
Lord’s and, though he made 0 andDavid Armstrong
Minor counties administrator,
chorister and organist from Norfolk,
writes Kenneth ShentonOnce a regular contributor to The
Cricketer, David Armstrong served in
countless off-field roles for Norfolk
and as secretary of the Minor Counties
Cricket Association for 18 years.
Indeed, the continuation of competitive
cricket at minor counties level bears
testimony to him.
A son of the manse, Armstrong was
born in Thorpe St Andrew and raised
in King’s Lynn. From 1945 until 1950,
he was a chorister at King’s College,
Cambridge, under Boris Ord, then
continued his education at St John’s
School, Leatherhead. After completing
national service in the army, he read
English and Mathematics at SelwynCollege, Cambridge. For many years
he was organist at St Mary’s Church,
Happisburgh.
A slow bowler, Armstrong played for
Holt, West Norfolk, The Cryptics and
MCC. He began his professional career
as assistant secretary at Surrey before
teaching in Cromar. He was Norfolk
CCC secretary from 1966 until, in 1983,
he succeeded Laurence Hancock as
secretary of the MCCA.
Armstrong’s arrival coincided
with an era of considerable change
for minor counties cricket. The
somewhat amorphous Minor Counties
Championship structure of a minimum
of eight two-day matches for each county
was replaced with six – three at home
and three away – in a western or eastern
section, with the winners meeting in a
one-day final. An additional attraction
was the new knock-out competition
sponsored by English Industrial Estates.
In 1986, non-England-qualified playerswere no longer allowed to participate at
minor counties level.
Armstrong proved an able
administrator, and represented the
MCCA on TCCB and ECB boards. When,
during the 1990s, the future of the MCCA
was threatened by the radical reforms
of the MacLaurin Report, Armstrong
proved no less adept in committee as he
had been in the middle. Having overseen
the MCCA’s centenary celebrations in
1995, Armstrong’s final innovation was
to herald the radical move, in 2001, from
two to three-day Championship cricket.
He also wrote the delightful A History of
Norfolk Cricket.
Armstrong stepped down in 2001,
and that season Norfolk comfortably
defeated Devon to claim the Knock Out
Trophy at Lord’s. It proved the perfect
retirement gift.David Armstrong was born on August 24
1936, and died on February 16 2018
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