Henry Horton (18 April 1923 – 2 November 1998) was an English sportsman who played cricket for

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...

in the 1950s and 1960s, having previously played a handful of times for

Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see His ...

in the 1940s. He also played

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

for

Blackburn Blackburn () is an industrial town and the administrative centre of the Blackburn with Darwen borough in Lancashire, England. The town is north of the West Pennine Moors on the southern edge of the Ribble Valley, east of Preston and north-n ...

Southampton Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...

Bradford Park Avenue Bradford (Park Avenue) Association Football Club is an association football club based in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. The team compete in , at the sixth tier of the English football league system. The name derived from their former hom ...

and

Hereford Hereford () is a cathedral city, civil parish and the county town of Herefordshire, England. It lies on the River Wye, approximately east of the border with Wales, south-west of Worcester and north-west of Gloucester. With a population ...

Football career

wing-half A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

, Horton played for

among others.

Cricket career

Horton came late to full-time cricket, having spent most of his twenties concentrating on his football career. He joined Hampshire in 1953, but did not achieve a regular place in the side until 1955, the season when the

West Indian A West Indian is a native or inhabitant of the West Indies (the Antilles and the Lucayan Archipelago). For more than 100 years the words ''West Indian'' specifically described natives of the West Indies, but by 1661 Europeans had begun to use it ...

Test batsman

Roy Marshall Roy Edwin Marshall (25 April 1930 – 27 October 1992) was a West Indian cricketer who played in four Tests from 1951 to 1952. He was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1959. Early career The son of a wealthy plantation owner, Marshall was bo ...

qualified for the county. For the next dozen years, Horton batted mostly at No 3, usually following the opening partnership of Marshall and the all-rounder Jimmy Gray, and the three players were responsible for a high proportion of the runs scored by a side that was perennially weak in batting but strong in bowling. Horton was essentially a defensive player, contrasting with the flamboyance of Marshall. He was a right-handed batsman with a curious and ungainly crouching stance, once described as if he was sitting on a shooting stick. But he made a lot of runs at a good average, and passed 1,000 runs in 12 consecutive seasons, going on to 2,000 in three of them. His total of 2,428 runs in 1959 is the sixth highest aggregate in Hampshire history, beaten only by

Phil Mead Charles Phillip Mead (9 March 1887 – 26 March 1958) was an English first-class cricketer. He played as a left-handed batsman for Hampshire and England between 1905 and 1936. He was born at 10 Ashton Buildings (since pulled down), second elde ...

(four times) and once by Marshall. He was a big contributor to Hampshire's two most successful

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 ...

seasons to that time: 1958, when the county came second to

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. ...

, and 1961, when it won the Championship for the first time. Horton remained fit into his mid-forties, and completed 1,000 for the last time in 1966. The following year, with younger players coming into the side, he played a few games and then retired from playing. He became a first-class

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'', ...

for a few seasons, then retired back to Herefordshire to live with his sisters in their home town of

Colwall Colwall is a civil parish in Herefordshire, England, situated on the border with Worcestershire, nestling on the western side of the Malvern Hills at the heart of the AONB. Areas of the village are known as Colwall Stone, Upper Colwall which sha ...

.''

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 ...

'' 1999, p. 1479.

Family

He was the younger brother of Joseph Horton, who played more than 60 times for Worcestershire in the 1930s and who died just four days after him.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Horton, Henry 1923 births 1998 deaths English cricketers Cricketers from Herefordshire Hampshire cricketers Worcestershire cricketers Players cricketers English cricket umpires English men's footballers Footballers from Herefordshire Men's association football midfielders Blackburn Rovers F.C. players Southampton F.C. players Bradford (Park Avenue) A.F.C. players Hereford United F.C. players