by Mayukh Ghosh
“The Springboks, under captain Jackie McGlew and with fine players like Roy McLean, Hugh Tayfield and Neil Adcock, arrived full of confidence but it was far from an ordinary tour. It began a few weeks after the Sharpeville massacre of April 1960, and the cricket took place just as the world was beginning to ask questions about South Africa and apartheid. And then there was the ‘No Ball’ controversy involving Geoff Griffin, a controversy which had a great deal more to it than met the eye, revealing the sometimes unfortunate intervention of administrators into umpiring decisions. It may also have decided the series, for England won rather easily, but this of course was the era of the great English bowlers, Brian Statham and Fred Trueman. It was also one of the first tours to be featured in any detail on BBC Television, a medium that was now attracting more and more of an audience.”
1960.
England.
Against South Africa.
A 12-year old in Scotland was fascinated.
Sixty years later, he thought of writing a book on that series.
Having already written over fifty of them!
David Potter was born in Forfar, Angus, Scotland in 1948 and has loved cricket all his life. He took an interest in the game watching the South African tour of England in 1960 on television.
He was never a great player, being more interested in scoring, umpiring and writing about the game, although he did play for Kirkcaldy 2nd XI for a short time in the mid-1970s.
He was a teacher of Classics and enjoyed coaching cricket at Glenrothes High School. He was an umpire in the East of Scotland League and the Scottish League from 1976 to 2004, but from 2005, he has been the scorer of Falkland Cricket Club.
He has written a few articles for cricket magazines and a few histories of local cricket clubs, local competitions, a biography of Bob Sievwright, Scotland's Greatest Cricketer and a book called Sixty Great Scottish Cricket Games.
This is his first attempt at a ‘tour’ book.
When asked what prompted him to choose this series as the subject of a book, he pointed out three main reasons:
“Interest in apartheid (and its abolition!) in later years, but in 1960 I was just learning what it was about.
“I like reading tour books because they are self-contained and give a picture of what else is going on in the world at the time.
“Also, the literature about this tour is not vast, and I feel that it is interesting for many reasons.”
What are the ‘many reasons’?
“I find the 1960 tour fascinating for three main reasons:
a. The start of the worldwide protest against apartheid which grew and grew throughout the 1960s, and how the South Africans, always charming and sportsmanlike could be representatives of such an evil system
b. The ‘no ball’ controversy and how much politics was involved in it. Geoff Griffin came across as the innocent victim of it all, and I sympathised with him because he was in the centre of it all particularly when he took a hat trick in the Test Match in which he was no balled out of cricket for ever
c. I was 11 years old, growing up and learning about cricket, a sport I became fascinated and obsessed by. Too young to go to the games, and living too far away, I followed the series on BBC Television. 1960 was the first year that my family had a television and I learned an awful lot from listening to the commentators.”
When asked about the challenges he faced and the way he dealt with facts (or the lack of it) and open-ended interpretations, he said, “There were no real challenges other than having to push myself back more than 60 years to a different mindset and culture. It might have been better if I had been able to talk to someone who played or was involved in those Test Matches, but they are mostly dead or senile or unavailable. In any case ‘personal memories’ of players are often highly coloured and biased, and often faulty.
“Facts were no problem - for Wisden and other sources are there. Interpretations are naturally very personal and idiosyncratic, but that is what being the author of a book is all about! Sometimes in matters like team selection, for example, there is no clear answer to questions, and one has to leave the reader to draw his own conclusions. Sometimes you simply have to wonder. Did Sharpeville, for example, ever cause the 1960 South African cricketers to wonder if their country had got it wrong? One would like to think it did! Do current Russian athletes and football players wonder why they are not being allowed into International competition? Do they begin to wonder if their country has got things wrong?
“A great deal of the book is about myself, of course, and the effect that it had on me. The personal involvement is often necessary to prevent the book becoming dull. Too many cricket books can become boring if they are just a list of statistics, performances and games. There is of course the other extreme when books are too self-centred! And that happens a lot in cricket books!”
One of the tricky areas in dealing with a topic like this is maintaining the balance between the cricket and the apartheid related issues. There’s always a possibility of one getting completely overshadowed by the other.
Here’s what David had to say about this:
“Very difficult especially if you love cricket and hate apartheid with equal fervour. It became more of a problem for me the older I got. By 1964/65 and then 1965 when England played South Africa I really agonised with myself, especially in England in 1965 when the South Africans were so good, but the real turning point came in 1968 when the South African Government tried to pick England's team for them! You can't do that!
“And by 1970, I was actively campaigning for the tour to be cancelled! Nor did I ever have any sympathy with the various "rebel" tours to South Africa by England players who should have known better. But it was all about greed! ‘There is a bit of the whore in everyone’ said Kerry Packer.
”As far as 1960 was concerned, now and again the South Africans were compelled to play against a black man in another team. I mentioned that, and wondered how they coped with it….”
David has been an umpire for years and there is one thing he dislikes about the job. It kind of sums up why, besides the issues in South Africa, there was enough reason for him to called it a ‘troubled tour’.
“I probably loved all aspects of the job other than ‘no ball’ for throwing. It was such a serious step. Giving someone out lbw or run out ruined someone's afternoon and possibly affected the result of the game in some circumstances, but calling them for "no ball" could ruin their career, and it was such a drastic step.”
David was brought up in a Celtic household and in later life he has written extensively on Celtic and Scottish football.
He has mentioned about football and rugby in this book too, the former being the main sport of white South Africans and the other was played mostly by the black.
In April 2022, two of David’s books were published.
One about the early days of Newcastle United when they were the best in the world. The other on this tour.
“It is very rewarding to have several books on the go at the same time. That way, you never get fed up with either book!”
Interesting man. Writes interesting books. All worth reading.