Jack Simmons: My Life - Part One

"I've noticed in last night's paper that you are playing for Enfield in a two-night match next week. The next day is your O-level geography exam. Have you ever realised that you can't make a living playing cricket?"

Oh, Mrs Archer, how wrong you have been.

For not only did the 15-year-old Jack Simmons come top of the class in his geography exam, he went on to become a bonafide Lancashire legend in an association at Old Trafford that has spanned over 40 years.

Jack was born on March 23, 1941, at 12 Duke Street, Clayton-le-Moors - an Andrew Flintoff-sized hit from Enfield's Dill Hall Lane ground where the young all-rounder began his cricketing education.

His father and grandfather both played for Enfield and the young Jack was a member there from the age of three - clocking up over 100 years of membership through the family's history. And it was obvious that cricket was in the blood.

He said: "My dad Bob played and they won the championship in 1943 and my grandfather, who was also called Bob, played as well and they reckon my grandfather, had it not been for the First World War, would have played for Lancashire if not England.

"My dad was a good cricketer and mainly a bowler who swung the ball a bit both ways. He wasn't quick but on the Lancashire League wickets he would always doing a little bit.

"He wasn't renowned as a batsman but I used to watch him playing for the Lancashire Education Authority, with him being a caretaker at Mount Pleasant School, and I remember going to see him play when we were off school once at Preston's ground and he took nine wickets, caught the other, and got 20-odd with the bat.

"My dad would always encourage me to do well and I remember once I got five ducks on the trot playing for Enfield when I was 17 and I was still in the side.

"And when I got the last one, I was a bit frightened of going home, wondering what my dad would say. When I went in they asked me how I'd gone on and I said I'd got another duck and before my dad was allowed to say anything, my mum turned round and said: No matter how many ducks you get Jack, you'll never get as many as your dad!'"

Jack started playing in 1953, aged 11, when he got into Enfield under-18s, alongside players like Geoff Farnsworth and Ian Metcalfe who spent many years playing for Enfield, and later the second eleven.

And it was thanks to his association with Bobby Marshall, the chairman of selectors at Enfield, that Jack fell in love with that greatest of British delicacies - pies.

He added: "Bobby was a baker for the Co-op at Clayton-le-Moors and he used to take me to Blackpool on a Sunday when I was about 15, to get better practice and so we didn't have to pay for anything he would bake a big beef pie. I loved them and that's where I got a liking for pies.

"Ian Botham said I should have written a book on pie shops and fish and chip shops throughout England because it could have been a best seller!"

Jack made his first-team debut in 1956, as a 14-year-old, against Ramsbottom when West Indian Nyron Asgarali was the paid man at Dill Hall Lane.

He was followed by Conrad Hunte but it was a member of the feared Three Ws' - Clyde Walcott who had lit the fire in the young cricketer's belly some years earlier.

In 1950, Walcott had been a member of the multi-racial West Indies team who had claimed their first ever win on English soil.

And during his three-year stay at Dill Hall Lane, between 1951-54, he became Jack's mentor during his early career and became a lifelong friend until his death last year.

"Clyde coached me and told me that I had plenty of natural ability," he said. "He used to coach the Slinger family - Edward, John and Thomas - but when he told me to attend private coaching lessons two nights a week, I said my mother and father couldn't afford them and he said to me "Who's going to charge?" And I got just the same treatment as the Slinger boys did.

"The presence of Clyde was superb. He was a gentle giant. He was over six feet tall and built very well, like a top athlete. He was my hero. And when he was playing for Enfield I would watch him avidly.

"When he started to coach me, he used to write me letters when he was touring Australia.

"When he was here, he used to live with my sister Vera and her husband in Dill Hall Lane but he used to dine at our house because mymum was a good cook.

"He once had six eggs for his lunch! I don't think my mother ever took any money off him for any of the meals he had.

"He used to take my mother and father to Blackpool every Saturday night to a top restaurant in his Hillman Minx car and he would always settle the bill. He was a lovely man."

Once Jack finished school, he choose to use his talent as an artist to get a job at Accrington Brick and Tile, world famous for its Nori bricks. Through his Enfield connections, he was able to get a job as an apprentice draughtsman in the drawing office.

But his career was starting to go places on the cricket field as well.

As he was still doing the business for Enfield, that alerted Ribblesdale League side Baxenden to his talents and they wanted him as their paid man at Back Lane.

But his father wasn't as keen.

He added: "When I was 18, my dad met with the people from Bash but he wanted me to have the best grounding and he just thought I was too young to go pro-ing and thought another year in the Lancashire League would be best.

"I was playing for Lancashire Federation and the occasional game for Lancashire 2s so he thought I should stay at Enfield."

Sadly, Bob Simmons, a former fireman in the local pits for 20 years, died at the end of that summer of emphysema.

And a year later, Baxenden came calling again. The boy had the skills to pay the bills and with his father gone, the Simmons' needed more money.

"Mum had only been able to work part-time when my father was ill," he recalled. "Bash came back the following year after I'd been asked to sign with Lancashire. My mother refused Lancashire because she wanted me to be the first in the Simmons family to have a trade.

"I agreed to go back to Lancashire once I'd served my time as an apprentice so I decided to sign as pro for Bash and played as many games as I could for Lancashire as an amateur.

"I was a bit disappointed that I wasn't given as much of a bowling opportunity as I thought I should have had at Enfield.

"I was only being put on as a last resort. I was batting at three or four and getting runs and when I got on I got wickets but I didn't bowl that much.

"Really it was a matter of getting some money into the house. My mother only worked part-time and I was only on three pound 10 as an apprentice draughtsman and my mother didn't earn much more.

"And Bash offered me 2d 10s a game with a pound for a win. And in the second year (1962) we won the Championship. I was at Baxenden for four years and I was getting better every year and they just came to me and said to me that I deserved more than they could give me, not that I had asked for more."

He added: "Barnoldswick came in and asked me if I would sign for them and I finished up getting double what I did at Baxenden," he said. "We didn't win anything but again I did well."

The invitation to return to Lancashire never came after a reshuffle at Old Trafford so Jack resigned himself to league life.

Jack's reputation as a talented league professional was spreading, especially as he was still playing at Blackpool on Sundays.

The Stanley Park club engaged some of the greatest players the world had seen.

And it wasn't long before the name of Jack Simmons joined that very elite list.

He said: "The first time I played for Blackpool, Hanif Mohammad was professional and then Everton Weekes' nephew, Donald, was pro after him. Cammie Smith also pro'd for them. And then the great Rohan Kanhai came and I played with him quite a lot.

"I even sub-pro'd for them a few times and did quite well and when Rohan was finishing, that's when they asked me. And I thought following in the footsteps of Kanhai, Smith, Mohammad and Bill Alley who was the icon of all the pros at that time, was going to be really tough.

"I wasn't sure at all but they thought I was good enough. The contract was £21, three times as much as I'd got at Barnoldswick. I felt like I'd won the pools. I played both days on the weekend but that didn't matter to me.

"In the first three games I got two hundreds and a 90, and a five-wicket haul, and I got selected for the league side to play in the inter-league competition."

Jack's efforts at Stanley Park had attracted plenty of interest - none more so than at Old Trafford.

The boy they'd forgotten at Lancashire was starting to make a big noise in local circles and it wasn't long before his legend was born.