Geoffrey Smith (30 November 1925 – 8 November 2016), known as Geoff Smith, was an English amateur

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 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 ...

between 1951 and 1958. He made 42 appearances in

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 ...

for the county, playing in his holidays, and professionally worked on engineering projects around the world.

Early life

Smith was born at

Huddersfield Huddersfield is a market town in the Kirklees district in West Yorkshire, England. It is the administrative centre and largest settlement in the Kirklees district. The town is in the foothills of the Pennines. The River Holme's confluence into ...

in 1925.Geoffrey Smith

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 2018-12-16. He was educated at

Christ's Hospital Christ's Hospital is a public school (English independent boarding school for pupils aged 11–18) with a royal charter located to the south of Horsham in West Sussex. The school was founded in 1552 and received its first royal charter in 1553 ...

, a private school in

West Sussex West Sussex is a county in South East England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the shire districts of Adur, Arun, Chichester, Horsham, and Mid Sussex, and the boroughs of Crawley and Worthing. Covering an ar ...

.Carlaw D (2017) Geoffrey Smith, Deaths in 2016, ''Kent County Cricket Club Annual 2017'', pp.245–246. Canterbury:

.Smith, Geoffrey
Obituaries in 2016, ''

Wisden Cricketers' Almanack ''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 ...

'', 2017. Retrieved 2018-12-16. He played cricket at school, captaining the Christ's Hospital side in 1944, and was described as an "excellent allrounder" as a schoolboy.Cartwright GHM (1944) The Public Schools, 1943, ''

'', 1944. pp.224–225.
Available online
Retrieved 2018-12-16.) He played for The Rest against Lord's Schools in 1944,Lord's Schools v The Rest, ''

'', 1945, pp.99–100.
Available online
Retrieved 2018-12-16.) a season in which he led the Christ's Hospital school batting and bowling averages, scoring 276 runs and taking 40 wickets.''Wisden'' 1945, p.266. After leaving school, Smith played two one-day war-time matches for

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

in 1945 before undertaking his

National Service National service is the system of voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act 1939. The l ...

, after which he returned to play for Surrey Club and Ground, appearing for Surrey's 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 1948 and 1949. Smith also played club cricket for teams such as Old Blues and played several times for the Club Cricket Conference (CCC) in 1949 and 1950, including against touring sides from

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

and the

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greater A ...

.Geoff Smith
CricketArchive. Retrieved 2018-12-16. He was capped by the CCC in 1949.Club Cricket Conference Numbered Caps List
Club Cricket Conference. Retrieved 2018-12-16.

First-class cricket at Kent

Smith had moved to live 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 ...

by 1950 and played for Ashford Cricket Club. He impressed in matches against

's Club and Ground sides and made his Kent First XI debut in June 1951, playing against

Minor Counties The National Counties, known as the Minor Counties before 2020, are the cricketing counties of England and Wales that do not have first-class status. The game is administered by the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), which comes unde ...

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. ...

. He took five wickets on his

County Championship The County Championship (referred to as the LV= Insurance County Championship for sponsorship reasons) is the domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales and is organised by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). It bec ...

debut the following season and played for the county each season until 1958, taking time away from his job to do so as an amateur. He also played for the Second XI occasionally, making a major contribution with 42 wickets as Kent won the 1956 Minor Counties Championship. He was awarded his

county cap In sport, a cap is a player's appearance in a game at international level. The term dates from the practice in the United Kingdom of awarding a cap to every player in an international match of rugby football and association football. In the ea ...

in 1953 after taking 31 wickets in six matches that summer, and in 1957 led the county's

bowling average In cricket, a player's bowling average is the number of runs they have conceded per wicket taken. The lower the bowling average is, the better the bowler is performing. It is one of a number of statistics used to compare bowlers, commonly use ...

s with 57 wickets at an average of 16.19 runs per wicket from 11 matches, including his best bowling figures of 8/110.Moore D (1988) ''The History of Kent County Cricket Club'', pp.133–134. London: Christopher Helm. In 1958 Smith played only once for the Kent First XI as a heart condition began to restrict his ability to play effectively. He had managed to play with an irregular heart beat throughout his career, to the extent that he was known to collapse whilst bowling. He did not play again for the county, although he was able to play club cricket for a variety of sides. As a cricketer he was described by ''

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 ...

'' as "an energetic fast bowler" and by

Derek Ufton Derek Gilbert Ufton (31 May 1928 – 27 March 2021) was an English professional cricketer and footballer, and later a football manager. Playing professionally for Kent County Cricket Club as a wicket-keeper and Charlton Athletic Football Club, ...

, who he played with at Kent, as a "quick" bowler who "moved the ball both ways and bowled tight line and length".Quoted in ''Annual 2017'' ''op. cit.''. He made all of his 42 first-class appearances for Kent, taking 165 wickets.

Later life

Smith worked for the Haden Group and rose to become the company's Overseas Managing Director. He worked as a heating and ventilating engineer on projects such as the

Sydney Opera House The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in Sydney. Located on the foreshore of Sydney Harbour, it is widely regarded as one of the world's most famous and distinctive buildings and a masterpiece of 20th-century architec ...

and the

Shell Centre The Shell Centre in London is the global headquarters of oil major Shell plc. It is located on Belvedere Road in the London Borough of Lambeth. It is a prominent feature on the South Bank of the River Thames near County Hall, and now forms ...

. He died at

Heathfield, East Sussex Heathfield is a market town in the Wealden District of East Sussex, England. The town had a population of 7,732 in 2011. With neighbouring Waldron, it forms the civil parish of the Heathfield and Waldron, which had a population of 11,913 in 2011 ...

in November 2016 aged 91. At the time of his death he was Kent's oldest living capped player.Former Kent bowler Geoff Smith dies aged 90

, 2016-11-29. Retrieved 2018-12-16.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Geoff 1925 births 2016 deaths English cricketers Kent cricketers People educated at Christ's Hospital Cricketers from Huddersfield