Michael Carruthers Fearnley (21 August 1936 – 7 July 1979) was an English

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 ...

er, who played three matches for

Yorkshire County Cricket Club Yorkshire County Cricket Club is one of 18 first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Yorkshire. Yorkshire are the most successful team in English cricketing hi ...

from 1962 to 1964, against

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

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

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 ...

respectively.

Life and career

Born in

Horsforth Horsforth is a town and civil parishes in England, civil parish within the City of Leeds, in West Yorkshire, England, lying about five miles north-west of Leeds city centre. Historically a village within the West Riding of Yorkshire, it had a p ...

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by populati ...

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a Historic counties of England, historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other Eng ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, Fearnley was a right-armed medium pacer, who took six wickets at 22.16, with a best of 3 for 56 on his debut against Essex. A left-handed bat, he scored 19 runs at 9.50, with a top score of 11 not out, also in his debut match. He also appeared for Yorkshire Second XI from 1959 to 1966, Nottinghamshire Second XI in 1960 and a Bradford League representative side in 1967. His brother,

Duncan Fearnley Charles Duncan Fearnley (born 12 April 1940), more commonly known as Duncan Fearnley, is a former first-class cricketer who, after retirement as a player, became a producer of cricket bats. Fearnley is also the great uncle of British Olympic gym ...

, played 97 games 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 ...

, and founded the cricket bat manufacturing company while his nephew, Paul Fearnley, played several Second XI cricket matches for Worcestershire. Fearnley died in July 1979 in East Bierley,

Bradford Bradford is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Bradford district in West Yorkshire, England. The city is in the Pennines' eastern foothills on the banks of the Bradford Beck. Bradford had a population of 349,561 at the 2011 ...

, aged 42, while playing in a

Bradford League The Bradford League was a football competition based in England. It sat at level 14 of the English football league system. The league was a feeder to the West Riding County Amateur Football League – in 2006 Dudley Hill Athletic made the step up ...

match for Farsley Cricket Club, which he captained with distinction. He held the record for the number of wickets in a career in the Bradford League, beating the old record of 1273 wickets in 1978, the year before he died.Tony Woodhouse, "Michael Fearnley – record breaker", ''

The Cricketer ''The Cricketer'' is a monthly English cricket magazine providing writing and photography from international, county and club cricket. The magazine was founded in 1921 by Sir Pelham Warner, an ex-England captain turned cricket writer. Warner e ...

'', October 1979, p. 30. He was Chairman of the Association of Cricket Coaches, the Director of the Centre of Excellence for Cricket in Leeds, and was assistant coach with Yorkshire for 13 years.

References

External links

* 1936 births 1979 deaths Yorkshire cricketers People from Horsforth Sportspeople from the City of Leeds Cricketers from West Yorkshire English cricketers English cricket coaches {{england-cricket-bio-1930s-stub