HUMOUR
THE GREAT ALL-ROUNDER:C B FRYIN THE world of Cricket there are few greater names than that of C B Fry. But Fry was much more than one of the most successful batsmen ever to don whites for England. He really was a remarkable ‘all-rounder’, superbly gifted in Track & Field Athletics, Football and Rugby. Commentator John Arlott once said, “Charles Fry could be autocratic, angry and self-willed. But he was also
magnanimous, extravagant, generous, elegant, brilliant and witty...he was probably the most variously gifted Englishman of any age. He was the very caricature of a ‘Boys Own’ action hero.” Charles Burgess Fry was born in West Croydon, Surrey on 25 April 1872 and very quickly proved to be brilliant at both academics and sport. He excelled
at Repton School where he won a scholarship to Wadham College, Oxford and gained an honours degree in Classic Moderations. He represented his college and university at Athletics, Cricket, Rugby Union, Football, Boxing, Swimming and Tennis. But it was of course as a Cricketer that he really excelled. Fry learned association football skills at Repton and gained a Soccer Blue whilst at Oxford. After playing for the Corinthians, he later joined the professional ranks, signing for Southampton FC and playing his debut match against Tottenham Hotspur in December 1900. From there he was picked for an England team to play against Ireland. In 1902 he played for Southampton in the FA
Cup Final against Sheffield United at the old Crystal Palace stadium in south London. (The ‘Saints’ lost 2-1 to Sheffield United after a 1-1 draw). Fry also played Rugby Union for England, Oxford University, Blackheath and the Barbarians. C B’ was a typical Victorian English sporting toff. He considered training to be ‘cheating’, so he never trained for anything he attempted. At the Oxford University sports in March 1893, 20-
year-old Fry equalled American Charles Reber’s World Long Jump record with
23 ft 6 1/2in (7.17 metres) after easily winning the 100 yards in 10.2 seconds. It is said that he carefully placed a cigar he was smoking in an ash-try beside the runway just before making his record jump, and then passed the remaining five rounds as he puffed away watching his rivals! His record jump remained an Inter-Varsity record for 20 years
until Harold Abrahams, no less, broke it representing Cambridge University in 1923. Abrahams of course went on to win the Olympic 100 metres title at Paris in 1924. At the Oxford v Yale match at Queens Club, west London, on 16 July 1894; Fry won the 100 yards, in spite of using a standing start whilst his rivals crouched down in what was then
known as the ‘modern’ starting style. Surging into the lead after 40 yards, Fry won the race easily on a very wet grass track in 10.4 seconds, but was unexpectedly beaten into third place in the Long Jump. It is a fair bet that he probably would have won at least one Athletics gold medal at the inaugural 1896 Olympic Games in Athens, but Fry was away in South Africa representing England at Rugby Union at the time. (It should be noted that Great Britain did not send a Track & Field team to Athens, though a few Britons did enter themselves as individuals). A man who effortlessly perfected physical skills, he was also an amazing acrobat. Whilst a student at Oxford, it is claimed that Fry was able to leap
backwards onto a mantelpiece from a standing position on the floor! Of course Fry is best remembered as a Cricketer. A superb right-handed batsman, he captained both Sussex and England for years, and England never lost a Test Match when ‘C B’ was at
the helm. At a time when pitches were distinctly more unreliable than they are today, he scored more than 30,000 first class runs with an average of over50 runs per innings, and just missed out on scoring a hundred centuries, with a career total of 94. When he retired from the sport in 1921, Fry had the second highest average of any player with over 10,000 runs. Only his Sussex and England colleague Prince Ranjitsinhji retired
with a better average. Fry headed the batting averages for five Englishseasons in 1901, 1903, 1907, 1911 and 1912. In the 1901 season, he scored an unprecedented six consecutive centuries (plus 3,147 runs) and in 1912 he captained England to four Test Match wins. He was invited to captain England again in 1921 at the age of 49, but politely declined. Fry played for Surrey in 1891, Oxford University from 1892 to 1895, Sussex from 1894 to 1908 and Hampshire from 1909 to 1921As a bowler, Fry took 166 wickets (from 9,036 balls bowled) in first class cricket, but none in Tests. His best in county cricket was nine wickets in one innings, and two in one match. Fry also made
239 catches in first class cricket and 17 in Test Matches. Outside sport, Fry became a teacher at Charterhouse and then director of the Training Ship ‘Mercury’, a nautical
school designed to prepare boys forservice in the Royal Navy. He and his wife Beatrice devoted over 40 years to this work, whilst he gained the rank of Captain in the British Royal Navy Reserve. His wife, however, is remembered as a tyrant who terrorized the boys under her care, and it was no secret that Fry considered himself locked into a loveless marriage for many years. Besides being a representative for India at the League of Nations, Fry stood for election as a Liberal candidate for a Sussex Constituency in 1904. Politics was one area where he was unsuccessful however: he later contested seats for Banbury (losing by just 224 votes) and Oxford without ever gaining a parliamentary seat. When Ranjitsinhji became one of India’s three representatives at the League of Nations in 1935, he took C B Fry along with him as a speechwriter. Believe it or not, but Fry was offered the throne of Albania when acting as a delegate at this political event. He
declined, due to lack of funds. Fry also edited a Cricketing magazine for many years, and was an accomplished political debater. He was also a man of startling contrasts;
a person of liberal ideals who nevertheless openly admired Adolf Hitler’s new fascist Germany in the 1930’s. There is also often a dark side to genius. Fry’s mental health suffered during his final year at Oxford, when he suffered a major nervous breakdown.
This resurfaced later in life as he lived in the seaside resort of Brighton, where he had periods of deep depression and paranoid delusion. In the late 1920’s he often startled locals by running naked along Brighton’s stony beach during some his less stable interludes.Fry moved to north London after the Second World War and died aged 84
in Hampstead on 7 September 1956. At his funeral he was widely lauded as an outstanding sportsman, politician, teacher, writer, editor and publisher. Iain Wilton relates an interesting story in his book ‘C B Fry: An English Hero’. In 1899 two men walked down the Trent Bridge steps to open England’s innings against Australia. One was W G Grace; the other a multi-talented newcomer called Charles Burgess Fry. Both were famous – Grace was simply Grace, the great cricketer who had once held the world record for 440 yards hurdles. But Fry was the hot new thing; he had already played Soccer for England and equalled the world record in the Long Jump. He was also unusually handsome and a first-class classical scholar. The ageing Grace, who was by then extremely portly, took one look at the dashing whippet on his left and warned him to be careful. “Look here young Charlie Fry,” he said, “Remember that I’m not a sprinter like you; so when we hit the ball, don’t dash up and down between the creases like a
blue-arsed fly!”
WHAT DOES YOUR DAD DO? Billy was at school one morning when the teacher asked all the children what their fathers did for a living. Many typical answers came out: fireman, salesman, dustman, carpenter, policeman, captain of industry etc., but young Billy was being uncharacteristically quiet. The teacher then asked Billy alone about his father. The boy shyly replied, “My father is an exotic dancer in a gay club. Every night
he takes off all his clothes in front of other men. Sometimes if the offer is really good, he’ll go out with one of the customers who will rent a cheap hotel room where they will spend the night together.” The teacher quickly set the other children some work and then took Billy aside and asked if him what he and said was really true. “No,” said Billy. “He actually plays Football for Newcastle and England but I was just too embarrassed to say that.”
BALLOON BALONEY A British clown had the smile wiped off his face after being told that he could not use balloons in his act because “children might be allergic to latex.” Barney Baloney (yes, that’s his registered name) said he was told by bosses at a supermarket where he was booked to appear that he should leave his balloons at home because of the potential for allergic reactions. The entertainer also had to ditch his bubble-making machine because he could not obtain public liability insurance as companies assessed that some among his young audience might slip and hurt themselves. He was also informed at one venue that he could not twist balloons into the shapes of
guns for fear of encouraging youngsters to commit violence, although swordswere deemed acceptable. “At this rate I will have no act left. Things are going from crazy to ridiculous,” said Baloney to the ‘Yorkshire Post’. A spokesperson for the Tesco supermarket in Leeds where he was due to appear refused to back down: “This is a health and safety issue. We have banned balloons because latex is used in the manufacture of them and this can trigger an allergic reaction in some children.” (AFP)
THE FINAL PRANK Mr. Lin, of Shanghai, returned home on April 1st from a business trip to find a black object swinging in the air upon opening the front door. He reached over and turned on the light only to discover that the black object was his wife, who had hanged herself. The shocked man immediately called the police and the property officer. Office staff helped Lin bring the body down while they waited for the police.
“Suddenly, she sat up, started to laugh hysterically, and said this was my April Fool’s Day present,” Lin said angrily. His wife, Han, a 26-year-old actress, played jokes on him all the time. “I just try to surprise him everyday,” she said. But for Lin, her fake suicide was the last straw. “I feel as if I’m sitting on a bomb everyday. We’re getting divorced!
“I can’t stand the jokes and games anymore. She hides the dishes in the washing machine, or changes the lock on the door, so that I can only enter by giving the correct answer to some stupid questions, and so on.” This woman sounds annoying. Whatever happened to surprising your man with sexy lingerie and the like?
CELEBRITY QUOTE “My new Broadway musical ‘Young Frankenstein’ is a great show that fully justifies the high ticket price of four hundred and fifty dollars. If you have
to shove a little old lady aside to buy a ticket; then do it. God will forgive you, because it’s one helluva show folks!” (Mel Brooks)
THE UGLY SON There was a middle-aged couple that had two stunningly beautiful teenage daughters. The couple decided to try one last time for the son they always wanted. After months of trying, the wife finally got pregnant and sure enough, delivered a healthy baby boy nine months later. The joyful father rushed into the nursery to see his new son. He took one look and was horrified to see the ugliest child he had ever seen. He went to his wife and told her there was no way hecould be the father of that child.
“Look at the two beautiful daughters I fathered!” Then he gave her a stern look and asked, “Have you been fooling around on me?” The wife just smiled sweetly and said,
“Not this time!”
CONNECTING PEOPLE The man claimed he had been held up at gunpoint Police in South Africa’s capital, Pretoria, claim to have to caught the “dumbest criminal” this year.
The man walked into a station to report that he had been held up at gunpoint by a gang who had stolen his mobile phone. But when the detective phoned the number of the phone reportedly stolen, it rang in the complainant’s pocket. “The shock left him speechless for a few minutes,” said police spokesman Eugene Opperman, adding that the man, 25, was then arrested for perjury. The police issued a statement entitled “Dumbest criminal?” with details of the weekend incident, South Africa’s Star newspaper reports.
“At the end of the interview, he rang the complainant’s cell phone number, and it rang in the man’s pocket,” Mr Opperman said, according to the Beeld paper. “He told the detective that he’d given him the wrong number,” he said. “But couldn’t explain why the phone in his pocket had the corresponding serial number, or why it was same make and
fitted the description he had given of the ‘stolen phone’.” South Africa’s reputation has long been tarnished by the high levels of crime, often accompanied by extreme violence
involving guns. davidcox@loxinfo.co.th
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