Barrie John Meyer (21 August 1932 – 13 September 2015) was an English

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

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, and later a cricket

umpire An umpire is an official in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection. The term derives from the Old French nonper, ''non'', "not" and ''per'', ...

. Meyer played football for

Bristol Rovers Bristol Rovers Football Club are a professional football club in Bristol, England. They compete in League One, the third tier of the English football league system. They play home matches at the Memorial Stadium in Horfield, they have been c ...

in 139 league matches, scoring 60

goal A goal is an idea of the future or desired result that a person or a group of people envision, plan and commit to achieve. People endeavour to reach goals within a finite time by setting deadlines. A goal is roughly similar to a purpose or ai ...

s. He also played for

Plymouth Argyle Plymouth Argyle Football Club is a professional football club based in the city of Plymouth, Devon, England. As of the 2021–22 season, the team are competing in League One, the third tier of English football. They have played at Home Park, ...

, Newport County,

Bristol City Bristol City Football Club is a professional football club based in Bristol, England, which compete in the , the second tier of English football. They have played their home games at Ashton Gate since moving from St John's Lane in 1904. The ...

and

Hereford United Hereford United Football Club was an association football club based in Hereford, England. They played at Edgar Street for their entire history. They were nicknamed 'The Whites' or 'The Lilywhites', after their predominantly white kit, or 'The ...

. In the summer, he worked as a member of the groundstaff at

Gloucestershire County Cricket Club Gloucestershire County Cricket Club is one of eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Gloucestershire. Founded in 1870, Gloucestershire have always ...

. A good

wicket-keeper The wicket-keeper in the sport of cricket is the player on the fielding side who stands behind the wicket or stumps being watchful of the batsman and ready to take a catch, stump the batsman out and run out a batsman when occasion arises. Th ...

, he played for

in 406

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officiall ...

matches from 1957 to 1971. He took 707 catches and 119 stumpings, but was a relatively poor batsman - his career first-class

batting average Batting average is a statistic in cricket, baseball, and softball that measures the performance of batters. The development of the baseball statistic was influenced by the cricket statistic. Cricket In cricket, a player's batting average is ...

is only 14.19, with a highest score of 63. Meyer was born in

Bournemouth Bournemouth () is a coastal resort town in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council area of Dorset, England. At the 2011 census, the town had a population of 183,491, making it the largest town in Dorset. It is situated on the Southern ...

. When he retired, he became a cricket

. He umpired 26

Test Test(s), testing, or TEST may refer to: * Test (assessment), an educational assessment intended to measure the respondents' knowledge or other abilities Arts and entertainment * ''Test'' (2013 film), an American film * ''Test'' (2014 film), ...

s in England from 1978 to 1993, including the 1981 Ashes Test at

Headingley Headingley is a suburb of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, approximately two miles out of the city centre, to the north west along the A660 road. Headingley is the location of the Beckett Park campus of Leeds Beckett University and Headingle ...

. He also umpired 23

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 from 1977 to 1993, including the

Cricket World Cup The Cricket World Cup (officially known as ICC Men's Cricket World Cup) is the international championship of One Day International (ODI) cricket. The event is organised by the sport's governing body, the International Cricket Council (ICC), e ...

finals at

Lord's Lord's Cricket Ground, commonly known as Lord's, is a cricket venue in St John's Wood, London. Named after its founder, Thomas Lord, it is owned by Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and is the home of Middlesex County Cricket Club, the England and ...

in 1979 and 1983. Meyer officiated along with David Evans during the 1984

test between England and the

West Indies cricket team The West Indies cricket team, nicknamed the Windies, is a multi-national men's cricket team representing the mainly Commonwealth Caribbean, English-speaking countries and territories in the Caribbean region and administered by Cricket West I ...

where the then record of lbw dismissals was equalled, although this record has now been exceeded on numerous occasions. In the West Indies first innings Meyer gave West Indies batsman

Viv Richards Sir Isaac Vivian Alexander Richards (born 7 March 1952) is an Antiguan retired cricketer who represented the West Indies cricket team between 1974 and 1991. Batting generally at number three in a dominant West Indies side, Richards is widely ...

out lbw. According to '

Wisden ''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', or simply ''Wisden'', colloquially the Bible of Cricket, is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom. The description "bible of cricket" was first used in the 1930s by Alec Waugh in a ...

': "Umpire Meyer later stated that he may have made a mistake, and that he had considered recalling Richards". However the West Indies won the match easily in any case. Meyer holds the accolade of being the only footballer in history to score a goal against Manchester United in the FA Cup and go on to become a Test match umpire. He scored in Bristol Rovers' 4–0 win over Manchester United in the third round of the cup at Eastville on 7 January 1956, which was United's 9th biggest defeat in FA Cup history. In 2006, he published an autobiography, ''Getting It Right'', co-authored with

Andrew Hignell Andrew Keith Hignell (born 12 October 1959 in Gloucester) is a cricket historian and scorer. Hignell has a PhD in Geography from Cardiff University. He has been the Glamorgan 1st XI scorer since 1982. For over 25 years he combined a career as a t ...

. Meyer's son Adrian was also a footballer, making 144 appearances and scoring 12 goals, for

Scarborough Scarborough or Scarboro may refer to: People * Scarborough (surname) * Earl of Scarbrough Places Australia * Scarborough, Western Australia, suburb of Perth * Scarborough, New South Wales, suburb of Wollongong * Scarborough, Queensland, su ...

, many in the

Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in the world. It was the top-level football league in Engla ...

, before injury curtailed his career. He died at the age of 83 in 2015.

References

External links

*
Barrie Meyer
from CricketArchive {{DEFAULTSORT:Meyer, Barrie 1932 births 2015 deaths English cricketers Gloucestershire cricketers English Test cricket umpires English One Day International cricket umpires English footballers Bristol Rovers F.C. players Bristol City F.C. players Plymouth Argyle F.C. players Newport County A.F.C. players Hereford United F.C. players Footballers from Bournemouth Cricketers from Dorset Association football forwards Wicket-keepers

See also

References

External links