Raymond Charles Tolchard (13 October 1953 – 31 July 2004) was an English

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 and

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'', ...

. Tolchard was a right-handed

batsman In cricket, batting is the act or skill of hitting the ball with a bat to score runs and prevent the loss of one's wicket. Any player who is currently batting is, since September 2021, officially referred to as a batter (historically, the ...

. He was born in

Torquay Torquay ( ) is a seaside town in Devon, England, part of the unitary authority area of Torbay. It lies south of the county town of Exeter and east-north-east of Plymouth, on the north of Tor Bay, adjoining the neighbouring town of Paignton ...

, Devon.

Cricket career

Tolchard made his debut for

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devon is ...

in the 1975

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 ...

against

Cornwall Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...

. From 1975 to 1984, he represented the county in 84 Championship matches, the last of which came against

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 ...

. Tolchard captained the county in a number of Minor Counties matches. In the 1978 Minor Counties Championship final, he helped Devon to their maiden Championship by scoring a

century A century is a period of 100 years. Centuries are numbered ordinally in English and many other languages. The word ''century'' comes from the Latin ''centum'', meaning ''one hundred''. ''Century'' is sometimes abbreviated as c. A centennial or ...

off 356 balls. He also represented Devon in 3

MCCA Knockout Trophy The National Counties Cricket Association Knockout Cup was started in 1983 as a knockout one-day competition for the National Counties in English cricket. At first it was known as the ''English Industrial Estates Cup'', before being called the ...

matches between from 1983 to 1984. Tolchard played

List A cricket List A cricket is a classification of the limited-overs (one-day) form of the sport of cricket, with games lasting up to eight hours. List A cricket includes One Day International (ODI) matches and various domestic competitions in which the numbe ...

for Devon, at a time when they were permitted to take part in the domestic one-day competition, making his debut against

Staffordshire Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation Staffs.) is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. It borders Cheshire to the northwest, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, Warwickshire to the southeast, the West Midlands Cou ...

in the

1978 Gillette Cup The 1978 Gillette Cup was the sixteenth Gillette Cup, an English limited overs county cricket tournament. It was held between 5 July and 2 September 1978. The tournament was won by Sussex County Cricket Club who defeated Somerset County Crick ...

1st round. The following season he played 4 List A matches for

Minor Counties South 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 ...

in the 1979

Benson & Hedges Cup The Benson & Hedges Cup was a one-day cricket competition for first-class counties in England and Wales that was held from 1972 to 2002, one of cricket's longest sponsorship deals. It was the third major one-day competition established in Englan ...

. In that same season he played a List A match for Devon against

Leicestershire Leicestershire ( ; postal abbreviation Leics.) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East Midlands, England. The county borders Nottinghamshire to the north, Lincolnshire to the north-east, Rutland to the east, Northamptonshire t ...

in the

1979 Gillette Cup The 1979 Gillette Cup was the seventeenth Friends Provident Trophy, Gillette Cup, an English limited overs cricket, limited overs county cricket tournament. It was held between 27 June and 8 September 1979. The tournament was won by Somerset Cou ...

. He played three further List A matches for Devon, the last of which came against

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...

in the

1984 NatWest Trophy The 1984 NatWest Trophy was an English limited overs county cricket tournament which was held between 4 July and 1 September 1984. The fourth NatWest Trophy tournament, it was won by Middlesex who defeated Kent by 4 wickets in the final at Lord ...

. In total, he played 10 List A matches, scoring just 92 runs at a

batting average Batting average is a statistic in cricket, baseball, and softball that measures the performance of batters. The development of the baseball statistic was influenced by the cricket statistic. Cricket In cricket, a player's batting average is ...

of 13.14, with a high score of 42. He also played a number of Second XI fixtures for the Leicestershire Second XI between 1970 and 1978. In 1988, Tolchard was included on the first-class umpires list, standing in his first first-class match which was played between

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

and

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 ...

. He stood in 40 first-class matches between 1988 and 1992, as well as standing in 35 List A matches between 1990 and 1992.

Personal life

In his latter years, Tolchard struggled with

Motor neurone disease Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as motor neuron disease (MND) or Lou Gehrig's disease, is a neurodegenerative disease that results in the progressive loss of motor neurons that control voluntary muscles. ALS is the most comm ...

, which claimed his life on 31 July 2004 at

Marldon Marldon is a village in the South Hams in Devon, United Kingdom, to the north-west of Paignton. It is the most northeasterly Civil Parish in the South Hams and includes the village of Compton with Compton Castle. Beacon Hill transmitting station ...

, Devon. Tolchard came from a well known cricketing family; his brother

Roger Roger is a given name, usually masculine, and a surname. The given name is derived from the Old French personal names ' and '. These names are of Germanic origin, derived from the elements ', ''χrōþi'' ("fame", "renown", "honour") and ', ' ( ...

played

Test Test(s), testing, or TEST may refer to: * Test (assessment), an educational assessment intended to measure the respondents' knowledge or other abilities Arts and entertainment * ''Test'' (2013 film), an American film * ''Test'' (2014 film), ...

and

One Day International A One Day International (ODI) is a form of limited overs cricket, played between two teams with international status, in which each team faces a fixed number of overs, currently 50, with the game lasting up to 9 hours. The Cricket World C ...

cricket for

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 ...

. His eldest brother, Jeffrey, played first-class cricket for

and

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

Torquay United Torquay United Football Club is a professional football club based in Torquay, Devon, England. The team currently compete in the , the fifth tier of English football. They have played their home matches at Plainmoor since 1921 and are nicknamed ...

and

Exeter City Exeter City Football Club is a professional association football club based in Exeter, Devon, England. The team play in , the third tier of the English football league system. Known as "the Grecians", the origin of their nickname is subject to ...

. His extended family included his nephews

Roger Twose Roger Graham Twose (born 17 April 1968) is an English-born former cricketer, who played 16 Test matches and 87 One Day Internationals for New Zealand in the mid-1990s. In February 2021, Twose was appointed as the director of New Zealand Cric ...

, who played Test and One Day International cricket for

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

Richard Twose Richard Twose (born 10 January 1963) was an English cricketer. He was a left-handed batsman who played for Devon. He was born in Torquay. Twose, who made his debut for Devon in the Minor Counties Championship in 1985, made his only List A appear ...

who played for Devon. Ray Tolchard's son,

Sam Tolchard Sam Tolchard (born 27 May 1989) is an English international lawn and indoor bowler. Profile In 2009, he won the singles and triples silver medals at the Atlantic Bowls Championships and the following year in 2010, he won the Hong Kong Intern ...

, competes in

bowls Bowls, also known as lawn bowls or lawn bowling, is a sport in which the objective is to roll biased balls so that they stop close to a smaller ball called a "jack" or "kitty". It is played on a bowling green, which may be flat (for "flat-gre ...

and has won seven titles at the English national bowls championships and represented England at the

Commonwealth Games The Commonwealth Games, often referred to as the Friendly Games or simply the Comm Games, are a quadrennial international multi-sport event among athletes from the Commonwealth of Nations. The event was first held in 1930, and, with the exce ...

in 2014, 2018 and 2022. His daughter Sophie Tolchard is also an international lawn bowler.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Tolchard, Ray 1953 births 2004 deaths Sportspeople from Torquay People from Marldon English cricketers Devon cricketers Devon cricket captains Minor Counties cricketers English cricket umpires Neurological disease deaths in England Deaths from motor neuron disease