George Gerald "Gerry" Tordoff (6 December 1929 – 16 January 2008) played

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

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

and the

Combined Services The Combined Services cricket team represents the British Armed Forces. The team played at first-class level in England for more than forty years in the mid-twentieth century. Their first first-class match was against Gentlemen of England at Lo ...

in the 1950s and early 1960s. A left-handed batsman who could open the innings or bat in middle order and a right-arm medium-pace change bowler, Tordoff had two seasons of virtually full-time cricket in 1952 and 1955, but was otherwise restricted by his career in the

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to occasional matches. He was given leave of absence by the Navy to captain Somerset in the 1955 season, but when the season was over, he resigned the captaincy and never appeared again for the county side. Tordoff was born at Whitwood, Yorkshire and died at

Poulton-le-Fylde Poulton-le-Fylde (), commonly shortened to Poulton, is a market town in Lancashire, England, situated on the coastal plain called the Fylde. In the 2001 United Kingdom census, it had a population of 18,264. There is evidence of human habitation ...

, Lancashire.

Early career

Tordoff played a couple of matches for Somerset in 1950 without making much impact, but in his first game of 1951, his third in all cricket, he hit an unbeaten 87 against

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. Later in the season he hit 55 against

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in a rain-ruined match at

Taunton Taunton () is the county town of Somerset, England, with a 2011 population of 69,570. Its thousand-year history includes a 10th-century monastic foundation, Taunton Castle, which later became a priory. The Normans built a castle owned by the ...

Cambridge, Somerset and the Navy

Having been at

Manchester University , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univer ...

, he went to

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

for the 1951–52 academic year and won a

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for association football, playing at left-half. In the 1952 cricket season, he played regularly for the Cambridge side, winning a blue alongside a galaxy of

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stars —

Peter May Peter May may refer to: *Peter W. May, American businessman *Peter May (cricketer) (1929–1994), English Test cricketer *Peter May (writer) Peter May (born 20 December 1951) is a Scottish television screenwriter, novelist, and crime writer. H ...

David Sheppard David Stuart Sheppard, Baron Sheppard of Liverpool (6 March 1929 – 5 March 2005) was a Church of England Bishop of Liverpool who played cricket for Sussex and England in his youth. Sheppard remains the only ordained minister to have played T ...

John Warr John James Warr (16 July 1927 – 9 May 2016) was an English cricketer. A successful county player for Middlesex County Cricket Club, he took part in two Test matches for England. Warr was known for his sense of humour and made many humorous ...

and

Cuan McCarthy Cuan Neil McCarthy (24 March 1929 – 14 August 2000) was a South African cricketer who played in fifteen Test matches from 1948 to 1951. Life and career One of five children born to Victor and Phyllis McCarthy, Cuan McCarthy grew up on "Glen ...

had already appeared in Tests,

Raman Subba Row Raman Subba Row (born 29 January 1932) is a former cricketer who played for England, Cambridge University, Surrey and Northamptonshire. Life and career Born in Streatham, Surrey, England to an Indian father Panguluri Venkata Subba Rao, of Bapa ...

Gerry Alexander Franz Copeland Murray Alexander OD (2 November 1928 – 16 April 2011), known as Gerry Alexander, was a Jamaican cricketer who played 25 Test matches for the West Indies. He was a wicket-keeper who had 90 dismissals in his 25 Test appearances ...

Robin Marlar Robin Geoffrey Marlar (2 January 1931 – 30 September 2022) was an English cricketer and cricket journalist. He played for Cambridge University before playing for Sussex County Cricket Club from 1951 to 1968. He captained both teams. Early li ...

and

Dennis Silk Dennis Raoul Whitehall Silk (8 October 193119 June 2019) was an English first-class cricketer and a public school headmaster. He was a close friend of the poet Siegfried Sassoon, of whom he spoke and wrote extensively. In the 1990s he chaired ...

, who played only one match, later became prominent players. Tordoff scored 435 runs at an average of 29 in the university season, with a highest score of 81 in the match against

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Fenner's Fenner's is Cambridge University Cricket Club's ground. History Cambridge University Cricket Club had previously played at two grounds in Cambridge, the University Ground and Parker's Piece. In 1846, Francis Fenner leased a former cherry orchar ...

. Once the university term was over, Tordoff played for Somerset regularly for the remainder of the 1952 season and finished second in the county's batting averages, with 636 runs at an average of 33.47. He scored his maiden first-class century with 101 not out in the match against

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at Taunton. He finished the season with 1071 runs at an average of 31.50. Having bowled only seven overs for Cambridge without taking a wicket, his bowling was more in demand for a Somerset side whose weakness in every variety of bowling except spin consigned them to the bottom of the

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. In several matches he opened the bowling and in

Harold Gimblett Harold Gimblett (19 October 1914 – 30 March 1978) was a cricketer who played for Somerset and England. He was known for his fast scoring as an opening batsman and for the much-repeated story of his debut. In a book first published in 1982 ...

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against

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Glastonbury Glastonbury (, ) is a town and civil parish in Somerset, England, situated at a dry point on the low-lying Somerset Levels, south of Bristol. The town, which is in the Mendip district, had a population of 8,932 in the 2011 census. Glastonbury ...

he took four for 43 in 22 overs, the first four wickets of the innings, and these remained his best-ever bowling figures. But his total of 11 wickets for the county that season came at a cost of 48.27 runs each. At the end of the 1952 cricket season, Tordoff took a three-year commission as an officer in the Royal Navy. This curtailed his appearances in first-class cricket over the next two seasons. In 1953 he played five times for Somerset and three times for the Combined Services, but failed to exceed 50 in any innings. The following season there were four Somerset games and two for Combined Services, and these matches produced 512 runs at an average of 51.20 with two centuries – a not-out innings of 156 for Combined Services against the Pakistan touring side at Catterick, which remained the highest of Tordoff's first-class career, and 110 for Somerset against

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Somerset captain

Somerset finished bottom of the County Championship in both 1953 and 1954, and the captain,

Ben Brocklehurst Benjamin Gilbert Brocklehurst (18 February 1922 – 17 June 2007) was an English first-class cricketer and publisher. Biography Brocklehurst was born at Knapton Hall, in Knapton, Norfolk. His father was a Canadian rancher. He was educated at B ...

, later owner and publisher of ''

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'', resigned. Somerset approached the Navy to allow Tordoff leave of absence to captain the side for the 1955 season. The move was not a success, Somerset ending up at the bottom yet again, for the fourth consecutive season, despite winning four matches, double the number of each of the previous three seasons.

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noted that Tordoff "stood little chance of bringing a transformation in the fortunes of the club". It added: "From the beginning Tordoff found his batting order a jig-saw puzzle without the right men to fit the holes." The Somerset county historian and journalist David Foot wrote: "He was a personable rather than an astute captain. Some of the committee found him a rather too convenient scapegoat. A former player said: 'It was hard to see who was around to take over from Ben (Brocklehurst). Gerry was a goodish player but he still had a bad side around him. It was terribly unjust that he should have been blamed as much as he was'." Personally, Tordoff had a mediocre batting season: he scored 1,196 runs, more than in any other season in his career, but his average of 22.56 runs per innings was low. He scored just one century, an unbeaten 145 in the match against

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

at Taunton, but he achieved his only representative cricket, being selected for the Gentlemen in the annual

Gentlemen v Players Gentlemen v Players was a long-running series of English first-class cricket matches. Two matches were played in 1806, but the fixture was not played again until 1819. It became an annual event, usually played at least twice each season, exc ...

match at

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, where he made 20 and 44. At the end of the 1955 season, Tordoff resigned from the captaincy, to be replaced by Somerset's first professional captain,

Maurice Tremlett Maurice Fletcher Tremlett (5 July 1923 – 30 July 1984) was an English cricketer, who played for Somerset, Central Districts and England. For a couple of years in the late 1940s, Tremlett looked as though he might be the answer to some of Engl ...

. Tordoff returned to the Navy, and never played for Somerset again.

Later cricket career

After 1955, Tordoff's cricket was entirely for the Combined Services first-class side, for whom he played a few matches in most seasons up to 1962. In 1959, he was captain of the Services team when

Jack Bannister John David Bannister (23 August 1930 – 23 January 2016) was an English cricket commentator and former first-class cricketer who played for Warwickshire County Cricket Club. He was, for many years, a BBC television cricket commentator and late ...

took all 10 wickets in an innings for 41 runs for

Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, and the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon an ...

at the

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ground in

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. And in 1961 he scored 131, his fifth and final first-class century, in the match against

. After his last first-class appearance in 1962, he played

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 ...

cricket for

Berkshire Berkshire ( ; in the 17th century sometimes spelt phonetically as Barkeshire; abbreviated Berks.) is a historic county in South East England. One of the home counties, Berkshire was recognised by Queen Elizabeth II as the Royal County of Berk ...

. A former pupil of Normanton Grammar School, he captained the Royal Navy side which played London University in 1969. The university side was captained by John Law, a former student of the same school.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tordoff, Gerry 1929 births 2008 deaths English cricketers Somerset cricket captains Cambridge University cricketers Berkshire cricketers Royal Navy officers Combined Services cricketers Gentlemen cricketers Military personnel from Yorkshire 20th-century Royal Navy personnel Cricketers from Yorkshire