Arnold "Arnie" Sidebottom (born 1 April 1954) is an English former footballer and

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

er, who played cricket for Yorkshire and played one Test match for England.

Football

Sidebottom was born in Shawlands,

Barnsley Barnsley () is a market town in South Yorkshire, England. As the main settlement of the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley and the fourth largest settlement in South Yorkshire. In Barnsley, the population was 96,888 while the wider Borough has ...

, Yorkshire, and started off as a professional footballer, playing as a central defender. He joined

Manchester United Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of City of Salford, Salford to ...

as an amateur in January 1971, and turned professional in 1972. He replaced the injured Jim Holton during the 1974–75 season in the Second Division. He helped United win the Second Division Championship in that season, but was transferred in January 1976 to Huddersfield Town, after making twenty appearances for United. He later played for Halifax Town. In 2007, he was voted in at Number 5 in '' The Times'' poll of the "50 Worst footballers (to grace the top division)".

Cricket

Sidebottom also had a cricketing career, and first played for Yorkshire in 1973, but did not win his county cap until 1980. The county's fortunes on the field were adversely affected during his career by in-fighting and by its own regulations, which prevented the fielding of players born from outside of the county; the county only obtained its first overseas-born player ( Sachin Tendulkar) as Sidebottom's career was coming to an end. A rare highlight came in 1987 when the county won the limited-over Benson and Hedges Cup, Sidebottom being at the wicket in the final as the win was secured. Test match cricket seemed to have passed him by when he went to South Africa as part of the rebel tour led by Graham Gooch in 1982, which also earned him a three-year Test ban. He also played for Orange Free State. After the ban ended, he was a surprise call up for the Trent Bridge Test in 1985 against

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

, where he took 1 for 65 before limping off injured. His only wicket was that of Bob Holland. Sidebottom himself admitted that his Test selection came when he was past his prime.

Coaching career

He continued playing for Yorkshire until 1991, and then went into coaching. He finally left Yorkshire in 2003. Arnie Sidebottom now coaches football and cricket to pupils at Woodhouse Grove School, West Yorkshire. He also coaches young cricketers at Thongsbridge Cricket Club and the Ryan Sidebottom Cricket Academy.

Personal life

His son,

Ryan Sidebottom Ryan Jay Sidebottom (born 15 January 1978) is a former England international cricketer who played domestic cricket for Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire and retired in 2017 after taking more than 1,000 career wickets. He is the only player in t ...

, is a left-arm fast bowler who has played cricket for both Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire, and has also represented England – in both Tests and

One Day International A One Day International (ODI) is a form of limited overs cricket, played between two teams with international status, in which each team faces a fixed number of overs, currently 50, with the game lasting up to 9 hours. The Cricket World C ...

s. He retired from international cricket in September 2010 and domestic cricket in 2017.

References

External links