Michael Austin Melford (born 9 November 1916 at

St John's Wood St John's Wood is a district in the City of Westminster, London, lying 2.5 miles (4 km) northwest of Charing Cross. Traditionally the northern part of the ancient parish and Metropolitan Borough of Marylebone, it extends east to west from ...

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; died 18 April 1999 at

Gerrards Cross Gerrards Cross is a town and civil parish in south Buckinghamshire, England, separated from the London Borough of Hillingdon at Harefield by Denham, south of Chalfont St Peter and north bordering villages of Fulmer, Hedgerley, Iver Heath and St ...

Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-ea ...

) was a sports

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

, primarily writing on

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 ...

but also on

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...

and

track and field Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping events ...

. He wrote for the ''

Daily Telegraph Daily or The Daily may refer to: Journalism * Daily newspaper, newspaper issued on five to seven day of most weeks * ''The Daily'' (podcast), a podcast by ''The New York Times'' * ''The Daily'' (News Corporation), a defunct US-based iPad new ...

'' for 32 years, and was their cricket correspondent from 1975 until his retirement in 1981. He was also the ''

Sunday Telegraph ''The Sunday Telegraph'' is a British broadsheet newspaper, founded in February 1961 and published by the Telegraph Media Group, a division of Press Holdings. It is the sister paper of ''The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', kn ...

'' cricket and rugby correspondent from the paper's launch in 1961 to 1975. From 1946 to 1950 he had been the athletics correspondent for ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the w ...

'', a position he subsequently held for a while at the ''Telegraph'', covering the

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a var ...

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in 1956 and in

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four years later. His father,

Austin Melford Austin Melford (1884—1971) was a British screenwriter and film director. He was the older brother of actor Jack Melford. Partial filmography Director * ''Car of Dreams'' (1935) * ''Oh, Daddy!'' (1935) * ''Radio Lover'' (1936) Screenwriter * '' ...

, was an

impresario An impresario (from the Italian ''impresa'', "an enterprise or undertaking") is a person who organizes and often finances concerts, plays, or operas, performing a role in stage arts that is similar to that of a film or television producer. Hist ...

and his mother an actress, and

Lillie Langtry Emilie Charlotte, Lady de Bathe (née Le Breton, formerly Langtry; 13 October 1853 – 12 February 1929), known as Lillie (or Lily) Langtry and nicknamed "The Jersey Lily", was a British socialite, stage actress and producer. Born on the isl ...

was his godmother. In spite of his theatrical family background, according to his ''

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 ...

'' obituarist he was conservative and understated, though occasionally wry."Obituary", ''

'' 2000, p. 1556. He went to

Charterhouse Charterhouse may refer to: * Charterhouse (monastery), of the Carthusian religious order Charterhouse may also refer to: Places * The Charterhouse, Coventry, a former monastery * Charterhouse School, an English public school in Surrey London ...

and then studied for a law degree at

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from 1935 to 1938. A middle-distance runner, he was awarded

Blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

in 1936, 1937 and 1938 for appearing for

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in the annual athletics fixture against

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 ...

. He toured North America as part of an

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athletics team in 1937. Melford joined the

Royal Artillery The Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly referred to as the Royal Artillery (RA) and colloquially known as "The Gunners", is one of two regiments that make up the artillery arm of the British Army. The Royal Regiment of Artillery comprises t ...

in 1939 at the start of

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, and served in

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and

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. By the end of the war he had attained the rank of major. He was chairman of the Cricket Writers' Club in 1962 and President in 1985.Cricket Writers' Club Honours Board.
Retrieved 24 April 2008. ''Wisden'' wrote of his time as a journalist: "Contemporaries valued him highly for sound, sympathetic judgment, good companionship and the odd decent racing tip." After retiring from day-to-day cricket reporting, Melford was the

ghost writer A ghostwriter is hired to write literary or journalistic works, speeches, or other texts that are officially credited to another person as the author. Celebrities, executives, participants in timely news stories, and political leaders often h ...

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 ...

's autobiography ''A Game Enjoyed''. He also continued to write obituaries and to contribute to ''The Telegraph Cricket Yearbook''. He wrote a well-regarded history of post-war cricket entitled ''After the Interval''.

Bibliography

*''Barclays World of Cricket'' (Associate Editor of the 1st edition), 1966. *''Pick of The Cricketer'' (editor), Hutchinson, 1967. *''Fresh Pick of The Cricketer'' (editor), The Cricketer, 1969. *''Botham Rekindles the Ashes'', Daily Telegraph, 1981, . *''The Daily Telegraph Cricket Yearbook'' (editor or co-editor), annually from 1982 to 1988. *''Cricket (Pocket Sports Facts Series'' (co-edited with

Bill Frindall William Howard Frindall, (3 March 1939 – 29 January 2009) was an English cricket scorer and statistician, who was familiar to cricket followers as a member of the Test Match Special commentary team on BBC radio. He was nicknamed the Bearded Wo ...

), Telegraph Publications, 1984, . *''After the Interval'', The Crowood Press, 1990, . *''Denham Described (A History of Denham Golf Club 1910-1992)'', with Bob Fenning, Grant Books, 1992.

References

Sources

*''Barclays World of Cricket'', 2nd edition, Collins, 1980, , p654.
Obituary from ''The Independent'', Retrieved 23 April 2008.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Melford, Michael 1916 births 1999 deaths People from St John's Wood British sportswriters Cricket writers The Daily Telegraph people English male middle-distance runners British male middle-distance runners British Army personnel of World War II Royal Artillery officers Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford People educated at Charterhouse School