Colin Fairservice (6 August 1909 – 29 December 1999) was an English professional

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. He played for

Kent County Cricket Club Kent County Cricket Club is one of the eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Kent. A club representing the county was first founded in 1842 but Ke ...

from 1929 to 1933 and for

Middlesex County Cricket Club Middlesex 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 Middlesex which has effectively been subsumed within the ceremonial ...

in 1936, making a total of 74

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 ...

appearances in his career. Fairservice was born in Hadlow in

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

in 1909, the son of

Bill Fairservice William John Fairservice (16 May 1881 – 26 June 1971) was an English professional cricketer who played first-class cricket for Kent County Cricket Club between 1902 and 1921. He was a right-arm medium-pace off-break bowler who batted in the l ...

who made over 300 first-class appearances for Kent between 1902 and 1921.Colin Fairservice

CricInfo ESPN cricinfo (formerly known as Cricinfo or CricInfo) is a sports news website exclusively for the game of cricket. The site features news, articles, live coverage of cricket matches (including liveblogs and scorecards), and ''StatsGuru'', a d ...

. Retrieved 2017-06-14.Bill Fairservice

. Retrieved 2017-06-14. He grew up in

and

Northumberland Northumberland () is a county in Northern England, one of two counties in England which border with Scotland. Notable landmarks in the county include Alnwick Castle, Bamburgh Castle, Hadrian's Wall and Hexham Abbey. It is bordered by land on ...

and attended Newcastle Royal Grammar School.Carlaw D (2020) ''Kent County Cricketers A to Z. Part Two: 1919–1939'', pp.75–76.
Available online
at the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians. Retrieved 2020-12-23.)Colin Fairservice
CricketArchive. Retrieved 2017-06-14. Having played for Northumberland Juniors, Fairservice first played for Kent Second XI in the

Minor Counties Championship The NCCA 3 Day Championship (previously the Minor Counties Cricket Championship) is a season-long competition in England and Wales that is contested by the members of the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), the so-called national cou ...

in 1927. He made his first-class debut in 1929 against

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the nor ...

Queen's Park, Chesterfield Queen's Park is a county cricket ground located in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, England and lies within a park in the centre of the town established for Queen Victoria's golden jubilee in 1887. It has a small pavilion and is surrounded by mature ...

. After playing occasionally for the county in 1929 and 1930 he became a regular in the First XI in 1931 and was awarded his county cap in that season.Kent County Cricket Club - Capped Male Players

. Retrieved 2020-12-23. Fairservice made a total of 59 appearances for Kent before leaving the county at the end of the 1933 season. He spent the following two years qualifying to play for Middlesex, during which he made occasional first-class appearances for MCC. During 1936 he played six times for Middlesex before ending his first-class career. Fairservice worked at

Stonyhurst College Stonyhurst College is a co-educational Catholic Church, Roman Catholic independent school, adhering to the Society of Jesus, Jesuit tradition, on the Stonyhurst, Stonyhurst Estate, Lancashire, England. It occupies a Grade I listed building. Th ...

and then coached cricket and rugby at The King's School, Canterbury between 1954 and 1975.King's Canterbury
Schools Cricket Online. Retrieved 2017-06-14.Lewis P (2014) ''For Kent and Country'', pp.170–171. Brighton: Reveille Press. He coached David Gower who went on to captain the

England cricket team The England cricket team represents England and Wales in international cricket. Since 1997, it has been governed by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), having been previously governed by Marylebone Cricket Club (the MCC) since 1903. Engla ...

.Gower D (2014) ''An Endangered Species'', pp.42–43. London: Simon & Schuster.
Available online
Retrieved 2016-11-15). He died at

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour. ...

in 1999 aged 90, at the time Kent's oldest living cricketer.

References

External links

1909 births 1999 deaths English cricketers Kent cricketers Middlesex cricketers Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers Players cricketers English cricketers of 1919 to 1945 People from Hadlow Cricketers from Kent {{England-cricket-bio-stub