KP, John Terry, the Ferdinands - and Arthur Worsley

KP, John Terry, the Ferdinands  – and Arthur Worsley

It’s not been a good week for sports.  There has been the unseemly John Terry case that has made us all aware that fbc doesn’t just mean full blood count and a choc-ice may not come from Mr Whippy. And at a much lower level of offensiveness but equally demonstrating emotional illiteracy is our old friend Kevin Pietersen’s latest utterance.

Having recently announced his retirement from one-day international cricket, Kevin has now signalled his readiness to return.  Fair enough, you might think.  But he accompanied it with the observation that he had never been looked after by the England management.  This was like a man leaving his wife, then asking to be taken back but throwing in: “By the way, I think you’re a complete b*tch.”

And so my thoughts have drifted to the great Arthur Worsley.  Who was he, I hear you ask. 

Well, he was possibly the world’s finest ventriloquist, an English music hall performer who became a major hit in the States via the Ed Sullivan Show.  He had a brilliant technique and a very simple and powerful gimmick.  On stage, he never spoke.  His dummy, Charlie Brown, did all the talking, haranguing and abusing the always impassive ventriloquist.  “Look at me when I’m talking to you, son” Charlie would say, gradually becoming more and more enraged by the impassivity of the stony-faced Arthur.

What has brought Arthur into my mind? It isn’t that John Terry and young Mr. Ferdinand might have avoided a lot of trouble if they had hurled abuse without moving their lips. As the other Ferdinand proved, Twitter is an ever-present aid for idiots. My point is that, maybe, sportsmen should rely on the instruments of their trade rather than their voices or their Twitter account.  Just as Arthur let Charlie do the talking, KP should rely on his bat, John Terry on the football at his feet, tennis players on their rackets, golfers on their clubs – and so on.  It’s just unfortunate that, the more famous sportsmen become, the more they want to be heard.  They are encouraged by the media and the media are urged on by us, because, stupidly, we are an all-too willing audience.

So a bit of a forlorn rant, I fear.  But at least the mention of Arthur Worsley gives me the opportunity to re-tell my favourite story about him.  When he retired, he consigned Charlie Brown to the attic.  Arthur’s son recalls that, when Arthur died aged 80 in 2000, after the funeral, everyone returned to the family home.  Before they started the wake, Arthur’s son went upstairs, came back with Charlie and put him in the armchair.  Surely, Arthur would have approved.

Quite a story

Here's the amazing story of Albert Moss, a man I would have loved to have met.

Albert was born near Gloucester in 1863 and emigrated to New Zealand as a young man. He was a talented cricketer and on his first-class cricket debut for Canterbury against Wellington in 1889, took all ten wickets for 28 runs, still easily the best bowling performance ever on debut. The ball with which he accomplished this was mounted, inscribed and presented to him.

Sadly, his life and cricket career went downhill very quickly from there. He took to drinking heavily, tried to kill his wife Mary and spent five years in prison. Not surprisingly, she left him (taking the precious ball with her) and later divorced him.

By 1909, having moved to South Africa, he was at his lowest ebb and about to drown himself in Cape Town docks. On an impulse, he called into a Salvation Army hostel. They helped him to turn his life around; and he devoted the rest of his time to working for the Salvation Army.

 
Now comes the incredible bit. In 1914, Mary Moss, his ex-wife, was on a walking holiday on the North Island of New Zealand. A piece of newspaper blew up against her leg. Picking it up to throw it away, she noticed the name 'Moss'. The paper was a fragment of the War Cry published in South Africa and the article was about the salvationist work of one Captain Albert Moss.
If she was surprised, imagine Albert’s shock when a parcel was delivered to him in Rondebosch and, on opening it, he found the precious inscribed ball, together with a note in Mary’s familiar handwriting, just saying: "I thought you would like this." 

Three years later, they re-married and had ten happy years together both in South Africa and England until Mary died (or in Salvationist terms, was promoted to Glory) in 1928. Albert lived to the age of 82, a loyal and hard-working Salvationist to the end.

If someone made that story into a film, you would say it was a bit far-fetched but it is vouched for by articles in the Cricket Statistician (a great journal if you ignore the statistics) and in the Salvationist newspaper.