FA Cup winner Steve Ogrizovic recalls the day he helped to send Yorkshire cricket down Salopian tube
“I HAVE nowt to say.” With those five words – according to the newspapers at the time – David Bairstow confined his comments to the assembled press corps after Yorkshire lost by 37 runs to Shropshire in the first round of the NatWest Trophy at Telford in 1984.
Addressing those reporters “politely but firmly”, Bairstow was said to have been too upset to go into further detail for fear, no doubt, that he might say something he’d later regret, so unhappy was he with the performance of his team as they exited the tournament at the hands of a Minor Counties side.
More than 40 years on, it remains one of the most embarrassing results in Yorkshire’s history, a giant-killing that was as celebrated in Salopian watering holes as it was lamented in the hostelries of a disbelieving Broad Acres, a day when Yorkshire cricket went, you might say, down the Salopian tube.
Bairstow, in his first year as Yorkshire captain, following a winter of the worst upheaval the club would know until the early 2020s, with the pro-and-anti Geoffrey Boycott factions at poisonous loggerheads, was, said the papers, magnanimous in defeat.
Afterwards, he was the first to go into the Shropshire dressing room to offer congratulations, recognising what it meant to their players and that county as a whole.
But he was, the papers added, and but for those five little words that said nowt anyway, “speechless” after a defeat that was inevitably written up as just the latest crisis to befall the club in those troubled years.
After sending Shropshire into bat, Bairstow saw them rack up 229-5 from their 60 overs as the former Pakistan captain Mushtaq Mohammad top-scored with 80 before Yorkshire were bowled out for 192 in 57.5 overs, Phil Carrick top-scoring with 37 and Mushtaq taking 3-26.
The first Yorkshire wicket to fall – that of Martyn Moxon – had been taken by a man more familiar to readers of the football pages than those devoted to the summer game.
At the time, Steve Ogrizovic was in the throes of completing a move from Shrewsbury Town to Coventry City, for whom he would make more than 600 appearances and win the FA Cup in 1987 courtesy of a 3-2 win against Tottenham at Wembley.
In Reports from Arbroath, a new podcast by the Midlands-based cricket writer Brian Halford and Sean Miller from Orion Creative Services, Ogrizovic has been recalling his part in this Yorkshire cricket day of shame.
Five years later, he would experience the flip side of the coin when Coventry were famously dumped out of the FA Cup by non-league Sutton United, who won 2-1 at Gander Green Lane less than 20 months after Ogrizovic and co lifted the trophy.
“I've been fortunate,” said Ogrizovic. “I know what it's like to be a giant-killer. That day proved it when Shropshire beat Yorkshire. I know what it's like to be on the other end, too, when Sutton beat Coventry, so I've experienced both.
“First and foremost, that day against Yorkshire was very special for me as I was able to bowl at Geoff Boycott. He was my batting hero. I was just in awe of the way he could bat, his powers of concentration and the ability he had.
“As a bowler - I was a pace bowler myself - John Snow was my hero. I used to love watching him come in and bowl, and he did particularly well against the Australians in the late 60s/early 70s.
“But to be able to bowl to Geoff Boycott was special, and you could see his forward defensive play first hand. An outstanding player - I’m not sure I ever troubled him, but he treated me with respect. If I bowled on the stumps, he’d work me down to fine leg. If I bowled short, he'd be looking to cut, but, generally speaking, if you bowled well, he respected that and he'd pat you back up the pitch.
“He was the top player at the time, even then (aged 43), but I didn’t get him out. I got Martyn Moxon, who was around the England scene at the time, got him caught at square leg, but it wasn’t a bowler-friendly wicket, or a pace bowler-friendly wicket.
“We had a professional, Mushtaq Mohammed, who did the damage, but it was a great experience to be part of a side that beat a first-class county, a special day.”
Ogrizovic, 67, could at least claim a hand in Boycott’s dismissal. It was a day when some criticism attended the famous opener; he scored 27 in 25 overs as Malcolm Nash (the spinner hit for six sixes in an over by Garry Sobers) sent down 12 overs for 16 runs, while as the lower-order struggled to keep up with the run-rate, a collection went round for Boycott’s testimonial followed by an announcement that he would be “signing autographs in the tent on the side of the field near the church”.
“I had a hand in his dismissal,” laughed Ogrizovic. “I was fielding at mid-off, and Brian Perry was bowling. He (Boycott) hit a ball to me at deep-ish mid-off, so he was obviously going to get one (run), but the ball went through my legs – as it did a few times in football – and went for four.
“So, instead of Geoff Boycott getting one, he got four, which meant that he was facing the next ball when Brian Perry got him caught and bowled.”
Cricket was Ogrizovic’s first love and he was good enough to play four List A one-day games (three for Shropshire, one for Minor Counties) and second XI cricket for Nottinghamshire.
One of his proudest memories - albeit bittersweet - was bowling Viv Richards in the first round of the NatWest Trophy against Somerset at Wellington in 1983.
“At the time, he was probably the greatest batsman in the world,” said Ogrizovic, who had earlier won two European Cup medals with Liverpool as Ray Clemence’s understudy.
“If you bowled on the wicket, he’d flip it through mid-wicket. If you bowled outside off stump, he could play you through cover, through mid-off, so your lines had to be very good.
“The ball was swinging at the time, and I'd got a few going away and I thought I'd bowl him an in-swinger. I bowled him this in-swinger and I've got a picture at home, a great picture, of me bowling and the leg peg cartwheeling out of the ground as Viv Richards is playing a defensive shot.
“I thought, ‘I've got the great man’, and then I heard this shout of, ‘No ball’. Apparently, I'd overstepped by a millimetre.
“Afterwards - and this is a measure of the man - Viv Richards came over while we were having a drink in the bar and said, ‘That was a great ball.’ He didn’t have to say that, but he did, and that was something I'll always remember.”
Just as he will always remember - as will all of cricketing Shropshire - the time when he helped to beat Yorkshire and his hero Boycott.
No wonder Bairstow had nowt to say.
- For further details/episodes of Reports from Arbroath, which features in-depth interviews with leading figures from cricket and football, visit reportsfromarbroath.com