Back in 1955, Surrey went into the new season on the back of a hat-trick of County Championship titles under Stuart Surridge and were aiming to become only the second county to do so four summers running. Richard Spiller looks back 70 years
Surrey’s season
Could they do it again?
Surrey had left it late to claim their treble a year earlier, 46 points adrift of leaders Yorkshire in late July only to sprint past them and resume their place at the summit.
This time Stuart Surridge’s men hit top gear from the start, winning their first nine Championship matches plus victory over MCC at Lord’s and two against Cambridge University.
The most extraordinary of them came against Leicestershire at Grace Road, where Tony Lock’s 6-37 despatched the hosts for 114 only for Charles Palmer – using himself to enable others to change ends – to grab 8-7 from 14 overs. His sensational return despatched Surrey for 77. Unperturbed, they removed the hosts a second time for 165, Lock taking another four alongside Alec Bedser’s 6-53, and knocked off the runs to win by seven wickets, led by Peter May’s unbeaten 84.
It summed up Surridge’s men, who won 23 of their Championship matches and lost the other five, draws being banished from their repertoire.
Yorkshire were their main – perhaps only – threat and were among the victims of that run, beaten by 41 runs in closely-fought match at The Oval. Much to the delight of wicketkeeper Arthur McIntyre, who had chosen it as his benefit match, 45,000 spectators squeezed in on the opening two days although many would have been displeased by watching Surrey bowled out for 85 on a damp pitch.
Off-spinner Bob Appleyard proved almost impossible to play at times, claiming 7-29, but the visitors were 108-7 by the close and dismissed for 131 as left-arm spinner Lock and paceman Peter Loader took four wickets each.
Opener David Fletcher’s 84 over more than four-and-a-half hours was the backbone of Surrey’s second innings, Surridge declaring on the final morning at 261-7 after more rain and Bedser’s 5-38 despatching Yorkshire for 174.
Loader had been responsible for removing Len Hutton in both innings, scoring 0 and 1, a sad final appearance at the ground for the man who had set a Test record 364 against Australia in 1938, scored his 100th first-class century in 1951 and led England to recapture the Ashes in 1953.
The match also achieved a historic footnote given that Hutton – who had just stood down as England captain – was pitted against successor May but neither led his county, Surridge and Norman Yardley being in charge.
Yorkshire would have vengeance of sorts by inflicting Surrey’s first defeat of the season – they had gone 11 months unbeaten – as 60,000 over three days at Headingley saw the White Rose county win by six wickets but they had lost too much ground already.
A surprise reverse against Kent in July briefly cost Surrey the lead but they had matches in hand and an innings victory over Sussex at The Oval in late August ensured Surrey were champions again.
Yorkshire, in 1922-25, had been the only other county to win in four successive summers although they had achieved another remarkable feat – under Brian Sellars – by claiming the Championship in the final three years before the Second World War and retaining it in 1946.
Once again it was the bowlers who held the key to Surrey’s success. Lock was in lethal form, taking 149 wickets at 12, off-spinner Jim Laker’s 102 at 18 complementing him in typical style while Bedser – fading out of the England side, being picked for just one Test – ledthe attack with 117 at 16.
Contributing seven players to England during the five-match series against South Africa, Surrey’s depth proved key. May (921 at 41 between international calls) was the outstanding batsman, Ken Barrington playing two early Tests and finishing with 1,262 at 39 and Micky Stewart confirming his breakthrough from 1954 with 923 at 29.
Bernard Constable was the only ever-present over the 28-match Championship programme, returning 1,029 at 26, McIntyre’s 807 another essential ingredient.
Another highlight of the summer, during the tour match against South Africa in July, was a first visit to the ground of Queen Elizabeth II, the club’s patron.
Oval Test
Level at 2-2, England’s series against South Africa could not have been better placed for a thrilling finale when the teams reached The Oval in mid-August.
A low-scoring series saw England win the opening match, at Trent Bridge, by an innings and five runs and follow it with a 71-run victory at Lord’s.
It was the dream start for Peter May, who assumed the captaincy after Len Hutton’s faltering fitness saw him drop out, having initially been appointed for the whole series.
May hit another century in the second innings at Old Trafford but saw his side lose by three wickets, South Africa levelling the series with a 224-run win at Headingley.
Now England paired Surrey’s spin pair Tony Lock and Jim Laker for the first time that summer, the latter having seen fellow off-spinners Bob Appleyard, Jim McConnon and Fred Titmus all picked ahead of him over the previous year, a penalty for harsh treatment on the West Indies tour of 1953-54.
Their hopes of having county colleague Arthur McIntyre behind the stumps were dashed, the Surrey beneficiary having stood in for injured Godfrey Evans at Headingley but suffering his own fitness problems and giving way to Yorkshire’s Don Brennan.
Left-arm paceman Trevor Goddard had caused increasing problems for the home batting during the series, so England went into this final match with five left-handers, a considerable bonus to off-spinner Hugh “Toey” Tayfield.
Just two-and-a-half hours play were possible on the opening day because of rain, England stumbling to 70-3, new opening pair Jack Ikin and Brian Close making 43 of them before the former had to retire hurt. Given the downpour lasted 12 hours, it was as well that the match had started on a Saturday, sunshine on the rest day helping to improve conditions. They could still only muster 151, Goddard’s aggressive line and length – akin to bodyline- earning him 5-31 and Close’s 32 proving the highest score.
But that would still be sufficient to earn a first-innings lead as the second day yielded 17 wickets, South Africa slipping to 33-4 and bowled out for 112 as Lock claimed 4-39 with two apiece for Brian Statham and Laker.
Given the difficulties in batting last at The Oval – no side had made 200 that season – that advantage was substantial and now May was back to his commanding best. Tom Graveney, initially dropped for the match only to be called back with Colin Cowdrey unfit, made 42 in a third wicket partnership – the highest of the match – of 65 while Compton’s 30 came despite him being in considerable pain with the knee injury which had troubled him for several years and would necessitate the removal of a kneecap.
May’s unbeaten 89 defied Tayfield, who kept the tightest of reins on the hosts in claiming 5-60 from 53.4 miserly overs, taking his side to 204 all out. That left the visitors needing 244 for victory in both match and series when they went in for a second time early on the fourth morning.
Their hopes of victory were seemingly sunk when three of their top five departed for ducks in sinking to 33-4 again. Three dropped catches hampered an attack fully in the hands of Laker and Lock, the main obstacle wicketkeeper John Waite as he foreswore the sweep which was getting so many of his team-mates into trouble.
Even his 60 was not enough, though, one of Laker’s five victims – Lock taking another four – as South Africa were bowled out for 151 to go down by 92 runs, the first time all five Tests in an English series had reached a decisive conclusion.
What else happened in 1955?
Sir Winston Churchill, Britain’s war time leader, retired as Prime Minister in April.
The 80-year-old, who had returned to power in 1951 after six years in opposition after the Second World War, was suffering increasing ill health and had remarkably survived a massive stroke in 1953.
Churchill was succeeded by Sir Anthony Eden, his foreign secretary, who promptly called an election and increased the Conservative majority from 17 to 31.
Clement Attlee, Churchill’s deputy in the wartime coalition and PM during the years of rebuilding after WW2, retired after two decades as leader of the Labour Party. Shadow Chancellor Hugh Gaitskell was elected in his place.
Rationing, in the wake of the war, had finally ended the previous year but there were many reminders of the conflict, not least in at the cinema where among the most popular films released were Above Us the Waves, The Colditz Story, The Cockleshell Heroes and The Dam Busters.
United States president Dwight D Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in WW2, had to take a month off after suffering a serious heart attack.
West Germany – comprising the zones previously occupied by the UK, USA and France – became a sovereign country and joined NATO. Austria’s sovereignty was also restored and they declared permanent neutrality.
On the other side of the Iron Curtain, eight countries in the communist bloc joined the USSR in forming the Warsaw Pact.
ITV began broadcasting in London, the first commercial television station in the country. On the BBC, Richard Baker and Kenneth Kendall were the first newsreaders to be seen on screen.
A series of train crashes around the country included a collision at Barnes, in south-west London, resulted in a subsequent fire which saw 13 people killed and 35 injured.
The first edition of the Guinness Book of Records was published.
Chelsea won the Football League first division title for the first time in their history but were forced to withdraw from the European Cup competition for the following season under pressure from the governing body.
Newcastle won the FA Cup, beating Manchester City 3-1 in the final at Wembley.
Stirling Moss became the first Englishman to win the British Grand Prix, which was staged at Aintree Motor Racing Circuit. Italian Juan Manuel Fangio took the drivers’ title for the second time in a run of four successive seasons.
Americans Tony Trabert and Louis Brough claimed the individual titles at Wimbledon, Australians Rex Hartwig and Lew Hoad the men’s doubles champions and British pair Angela Mortimer and Anne Shilcock supreme in the ladies doubles.
Australian Peter Thomson retained the British Open golf crown, the second year of a hat-trick, at St Andrews.
France and Wales shared rugby union’s Five Nations Championship.
