Obituaries index: F-M

FERGUSON, WILLIAM HENRY NOEL, died on October 31, 2007, aged 79. Noel Ferguson, an opening bowler from Downpatrick, had a curious representative career: he made his debut for Ireland in 1951, but had to wait 11 years for another chance. He won ten Irish caps in all, five of them in first-class games, and took six for 37 against Scotland at Greenock in 1962.

GARWOOD, REX ELVYN, died on May 16, 2007, the day after his 77th birthday. An opening batsman and leg-spinner, he played five matches for Tasmania in the early 1950s, scoring 49 and 21 at Launceston in 1953-54 to help them to their first victory over Victoria in 18 years. Garwood also played Australian Rules football for the state and represented Australia at bowls. In 1987 he was the first person inducted into the Tasmanian Sporting Hall of Fame.

GORDON, ALAN, who died on March 15, 2007, aged 62, was a prolific club batsman (for Coventry & North Warwicks) who never quite made the step up to county cricket. A good close fielder, he had a decade on the staff at Edgbaston, but his best season was 1970, when his 366 runs included all three of his firstclass fifties. Gordon later ran a pub in Exhall for more than 20 years.

HARMER, LESLIE HENRY GEORGE, died on May 24, 2007, aged 86. Les Harmer, born in London, was a Dunedin-based umpire who stood in nine firstclass matches, all at Carisbrook, and New Zealand's one-day international against Australia there in 1973-74.

HARRIS, DAVID, died on August 8, 2007, aged 76. In 25 matches for South Australia in the 1950s Dave Harris looked full of willowy elegance as an opener, but his full potential was never realised. His solitary season of real accomplishment was in 1957-58, when he reached 50 six times in 15 innings. His uncle, Gordon Harris, also opened for South Australia.

HAYES, JOHN ARTHUR, died on December 25, 2007, aged 80. Johnny "Haybag" Hayes was arguably the fastest bowler New Zealand has ever produced, although his overall Test figures were modest - 30 wickets at 40.56, from 15 matches. He was chosen for the 1949 tour of England after only three first-class games, and did well at the start, collecting 26 wickets before a groin injury ended his active participation in mid-July. John Reid, on his first tour, reckoned the only faster bowler he saw on the whole trip was another New Zealander, Tom Pritchard, who was playing for Warwickshire. Hayes missed the following home season with illness, but finally made his Test debut against England in 1950-51, and the following summer dismissed Clyde Walcott, Frank Worrell and Gerry Gomez in the space of eight balls in a closerun Christchurch Test against West Indies. Work commitments cost Hayes a tour of South Africa in 1953-54, and he might have regretted making himself available for the trip to Pakistan and India two years later, as he came down with hepatitis, in addition to being one of several players hindered by stomach trouble. In one match he performed the feat chiefly associated with Alf Gover: he ran in to bowl, continued past the startled batsman and hurtled up the pavilion steps into the dressing-room toilet, remaining there until his team-mates came in for lunch. The hepatitis meant he missed the following home series against West Indies, which included New Zealand's first victory - he never was on the winning side in a Test - but he bowled himself back into contention with a superb domestic season in 1957-58, when his 48 wickets at 11.83 included 14 for 65 on a wet Eden Park pitch against Wellington. This won him a place to tour England again in 1958 but, although he did well overall, including 11 for 89 in the match against MCC at Lord's, he struggled in a weak side in the Tests. Hayes did manage a Test-best four for 36, again at Lord's. "I'd say he had enough pace to be an international bowler," said Reid, by then his captain, "but he didn't do enough with the ball, although nobody could say he didn't try." Hayes's participation in that 1958 tour was originally in doubt, as the New Zealand board engaged in delicate negotiations with his employers, who had initially refused him leave of absence. Hayes agreed to tip off Don Cameron, now the doyen of New Zealand cricket reporters, about the outcome of the talks. He was to telegraph "apples" if he was being allowed to tour, or "lemons" if not. When it came to the crunch, though, Hayes forgot what the right word was and wired "plums" instead. Cameron correctly deduced that this meant he was going, and filed his exclusive. Hayes retired after the tour to concentrate on his business career, eventually rising to a senior position in the New Zealand Overseas Trading Corporation. For a while he was the Moroccan government's honorary consul-general in New Zealand.

HAYWOOD, ABOUBAKAAR, died on May 3, 2007, aged 75. "Carr" Haywood was a modest club all-rounder who as a young man played for Hamediehs in the segregated Western Province Indian league. But he was well-known in Cape Town as a passionate and knowledgeable follower of the game and, for more than 40 years, a key member of the nine-man team that controlled the old scoreboard at Newlands. He was a schoolmate and close friend of Cape Town's most famous cricketing son, Basil D'Oliveira. Andre Odendaal, chief executive of the Western Province Cricket Association, said: "He was the living embodiment of a feisty 100-year-old cricket culture that did not need the approval of a racially exclusive establishment to thrive in the bad old days."

HILL, LENARD WINSTON, died of cancer on April 10, 2007, aged 65. An adhesive right-hander, Len Hill was one of the last professional footballercricketers, turning out for Glamorgan when free of his soccer commitments. From Caerleon, just outside Newport, he was a long-serving wing-half for his local League club and, more briefly, Swansea. In 1974, his soccer career over, he finally played a near-full cricket season, and was capped after a number of phlegmatic displays, including a match-winning 90 in nearly six hours to turn a game against Hampshire upside down. The defeat turned out to cost Hampshire the Championship. He left the club amid some acrimony when Glamorgan finished bottom two years later, becoming a builder - and playing formidable tennis and golf, at which he represented Wales Over-55s. "He was one of Newport's finest, a really gifted sportsman," said the South Wales Argus.

HOPKINS, JOSEPH KEVIN, who died on September 25, 2007, aged 73, kept wicket in Ireland's two-day game against Richie Benaud's Australian tourists in Dublin in 1961, catching Bob Simpson and Peter Burge and stumping Alan Davidson.

HOWAT, GERALD MALCOLM DAVID, died on October 10, 2007, aged 79. A life-long cricket enthusiast, Howat turned late to writing about it during a career in teaching, latterly at Radley College and Lord Williams's School in Thame. His biography of Learie Constantine won the Cricket Society's Book of the Year award in 1975, and he also produced uncomplicated lives of Walter Hammond, Pelham Warner and Len Hutton, as well as retracing the unusual career of the Warwickshire professional turned clergyman Jack Parsons. He wrote about schools and Under- 19 cricket for the Daily Telegraph and, for a time, Wisden. He was in charge of the cricketing entries in the new Dictionary of National Biography, and chaired MCC's Publishing Working Party. Howat's final book, his own autobiography, appeared in 2006. A keen wicketkeeper, he turned out for the North Moreton club in Oxfordshire until he was 77. His son, Michael, won a Cambridge Blue in 1977 and 1980 as a pace bowler.

HUTCHISON, Professor TERENCE WILMOT, who died on October 5, 2007, aged 95, was a pioneering scholar in the history of economic thought. He was also an enthusiastic club cricketer and cricket-watcher, who was first taken to Lord's to see Middlesex play the Australians in 1921 and was thought to be the last man alive to watch all four days of the 1926 Oval Test, when England regained the Ashes. Hutchison was professor of economics at Birmingham University for 22 years, and between 1938 and 2000 produced a succession of influential books, praised for their wit and style (unusual in his subject) as well as their challenging ideas.

IBRAHIM, KHANMOHAMMAD CASSUMBHOY, who died on November 12, 2007, aged 88, was India's oldest living Test player. A correct top-order batsman who sometimes opened, in 1947-48 Ibrahim established a first-class record that still stands, scoring 709 runs between dismissals. He made 218, 36, 234 and 77, all not out, for his own XI in the Bombay Festival, before being out for 144 in his first Ranji Trophy innings of the season. Not surprisingly, he forced his way into the Test side for the 1948-49 series against West Indies. He started well, with 85 and 44 at Delhi, but fell away after that, managing only 40 more runs in six innings, although he did make 219 in more than ten hours in that season's Ranji Trophy final, while captaining Bombay to victory over Baroda. Madhav Mantri, a Bombay team-mate and the uncle of Sunil Gavaskar, recalled: "He was a solid player, one who believed in staying at the wicket for as long as possible. He had a good range of strokes - a fierce cut, drive and glance - but was known to be one who hung in there to grind out runs. In the '50s and '60s young boys used to be told 'Bat like K.C. - stay at the wicket and the runs will definitely come.'" Ibrahim extended five of his 14 centuries past 200 and finished with a first-class batting average of 61.24. He later went to live in Pakistan, and died there.

ILANGARATNAM, SABAPATHIPILLE, who died of a heart attack on July 16, 2007, aged 59, was a fast bowler who played a lot of club cricket in Colombo, and represented Sri Lanka against the 1976-77 MCC tourists, captained by Tony Greig, in pre-Test days. Bandula Warnapura, Sri Lanka's captain in their first Test, also skippered him for Bloomfield, and recalled: "Saba was perhaps the most loved fast bowler ever to grace the cricket field. Although he bowled with hostility he was a person whom even the opposition loved."

JACKSON, HERBERT LESLIE, died on April 25, 2007, aged 86. Fred Trueman described Les Jackson as the "best six-days-a-week bowler in county cricket", and few batsmen looked forward to their examination by Jackson and Cliff Gladwin when they visited Derby in the 1950s. Jackson was fiercely accurate, and had a waspish nip-backer which often found its mark: "Even when I was scoring runs I used to finish up with bruises," recalled Tom Graveney ruefully, adding that when he saw Jackson in later years he would instinctively start rubbing his thighs. But despite his reputation, Jackson won only two Test caps, 12 years apart. Jackson came from the mining village of Whitwell - he was to return to the pits most winters, first as a collier then as a driver - and played his early cricket as a pro for Worksop. He had one match for Derbyshire in 1947: the captain Eddie Gothard didn't rate his bowling, at least until the coach shrewdly arranged for him to face it in the nets. Then, aged 27, Jackson broke through, taking 65 wickets in 1948, and 120 in 1949. That year he was called up by England to face New Zealand at Old Trafford in Alec Bedser's absence. He bowled tightly and took three wickets, but it was not a huge surprise when he was left out of the next Test at The Oval - Bedser was back, and England also wanted another spinner. However, few imagined it would be a dozen years before Jackson would be picked again: when Brian Statham was unfit for the Headingley Ashes Test of 1961. Again he let no one down: by then 40, he took four wickets as Australia were beaten, producing a big off-cutter to dismiss the stubborn opener Colin McDonald. But that was it, even though he had been a formidable and consistent force in county cricket in the meantime. In the wet summer of 1958, hampered by a groin strain, he cut down his pace a little and turned out to be almost unplayable, collecting 143 wickets at just 10.99. He had an even more productive season in 1960: 160 at 13.61. Why was Jackson ignored for the entire 1950s? He had a slingy, round-arm delivery which looked ungainly, and Freddie Brown, an influential selector in the early 1950s, apparently thought Jackson couldn't come back for a second or third spell. Fred Trueman was convinced that the even more powerful Gubby Allen disliked Jackson's action and thought he wasn't fast enough. Trueman championed his cause until he died and would get apoplectic when reminded of the selection of the Middlesex amateur John Warr ahead of Jackson for Australia in 1950-51. It might have been legitimate to look twice at wickets taken in Derbyshire, where conditions were often very Jackson-friendly. But of his 1,670 wickets for the county, a Derbyshire record, 860 came at home and 810 away, so the difference was hardly significant. It may well be true, as was widely believed, that unfashionable bowlers from unfashionable counties were at a disadvantage in that era. And no one was more unfashionable than a Derbyshire pitman. Of those 1,670 wickets (and 63 for other teams), 254 - including a hat-trick of caught-behinds against Worcestershire in 1958 - were co-productions with wicketkeeper George Dawkes, who looked not unlike him (see Wisden 2007, page 1548). An elderly lady in Southampton once tried to bash Dawkes with her brolly after Jackson hit Vic Cannings of Hampshire. Before Jackson retired, though, Dawkes had been replaced by Bob Taylor. "Les was a terrific bowler - quite sharp, nippy off the wicket," Taylor recalled. "He had a slingy action, not unlike Jeff Thomson's, and his arm was a bit low, but he was so accurate, and got a lot of movement off the pitch rather than through the air. He was great to keep wicket to, as the ball would always come through with the seam upright - with most bowlers the seam bobbles about a bit and the ball can dip or swerve on you, but with Les it just came straight through all the time, even if the batsman nicked it." Among post-war bowlers, only Statham has taken more wickets at a lower average than Jackson (17.36), and even he was less miserly. Almost a third of Jackson's career overs were maidens.

JOHNSTON, WILLIAM ARRAS, died on May 24, 2007, aged 85. In the early 1950s Bill Johnston was capable of bowling as vicious a bumper as just about any bowler in the world. The problem was it would usually be followed by a chuckle, not the traditional fast bowler's wicked laugh but a guffaw that told the batsman there was no malice intended. It was the kind of response which once caused Bill O'Reilly to lament: "As a bowler he has one failing - he hasn't a temper." Indeed, his friend and team-mate Neil Harvey recalled: "His happiness spread itself through the team." With a secure understanding of his bowling talent, he didn't need a temper. Former Test opener Jack Moroney once declared: "Bill Johnston could do things with a cricket ball that were beyond normal human beings." And Harvey Born at Beeac, in the Victorian dairy country, Johnston was originally a slow left-armer but, when he emerged from the RAAF, former Australian captain Jack Ryder advised him to bowl quicker, advice soon reiterated by Don Bradman, who wanted more pace on the 1948 Ashes tour. So Johnston used his height and strength, together with his looseness of limb, to turn himself into a left-arm bowler of immense variety, able to swing the ball at a brisk fast-medium pace, occasionally explode into short episodes of real speed and, when the conditions were right, reach back to the spin of his youth, each variety delivered with probing accuracy. After taking three wickets for Victoria in his first 12 balls against the 1947-48 Indians, he took 14 more in the first three Tests and was then rested, an indicator that he would be on the boat to England. Once there, he was at the forefront of Australia's success. He and Lindwall both took 27 wickets in the Tests, and Johnston finished with 102 on tour, his capacity for long spells leading to a place in Wisden's (all- Australian) Five in 1949. The First Test at Trent Bridge was typical; having broken the spine of the England batting with five for 36 from 25 overs in the first innings, he covered the absence of the injured Lindwall with four for 147 from 59 overs in the second. Johnston had only narrowly been chosen for that match ahead of the wrist-spinner Doug Ring. "What a fortunate decision it was!" wrote Bradman in Farewell to Cricket. Early in the tour of South Africa in 1949-50, Johnston was injured in a car accident which left him with what he described as "a nine-iron divot in the top of my skull". Despite missing two months of cricket and with only one warm-up match, he took six for 44 in South Africa's second innings of the First Test to seal an innings victory. The succeeding three Australian home series saw Johnston top the aggregates against England, West Indies and South Africa, reaching his 100th Test wicket in only his 22nd match. But against the East Molesey club in a prelude to the 1953 Ashes tour, Johnston twisted his knee so badly that he was forced to change the position of his right foot at the point of delivery. This increased the physical strain of bowling and muffled his effectiveness to the point where he was dropped during the series against West Indies in 1955. Then he retired. As an old-school No. 11, he had his moments of achievement. At Melbourne in 1951-52, he and Ring stole the Test from under the noses of the West Indians with a stand of 38 which was a mixture of scampered singles and the occasional bludgeoning. Three years later, against England at Sydney, he gave canny support to Neil Harvey as they added 39 of the 78 that would have brought victory against a rampant Frank Tyson, even swinging the disbelieving bowler one-handed off his hip to the boundary. And there was the artfully contrived mockery of statistics which saw him head the batting averages on the 1953 tour of England (I 17, NO 16, R 102, HS 28*, Avge 102.00). This was made possible by Lindsay Hassett, towards the end of the tour, giving his batting partners protective instructions and sending notes to opposing county captains requesting complicity. Ray Robinson called said that, as a fielder, he was "galumphing", and that when he chased the ball he looked like "Pluto in pursuit of Donald Duck". But Johnston redeemed that with a powerful arm, and the faults merely added to the good humour he brought to the cricket field.

Johnston had a varied working life during which he was a salesman for Dunlop, before becoming the marketing manager for a shoe firm, and running a pub, an apartment complex and a post office. His son, David, played ten matches for South Australia and is now chief executive of the Tasmanian Cricket Association.

JONES, CLEMENT, AO, who died on December 15, 2007, aged 89, was a dominating force in the life of Brisbane over five decades. A successful businessman and Labor politician, Clem Jones was Lord Mayor from 1961 to 1975, modernising almost everything in the city right down to the sewer system: "he proudly ousted the outhouse", as Queensland premier Anna Bligh put it at his funeral. She also called him "the father of modern Brisbane". Jones served cricket in a multitude of capacities, starting as a club delegate in 1942 and going on to chair the Brisbane Cricket Ground Trust, where he began the process of transforming the Gabba from an antediluvian shambles into a modern sporting arena. Jones was also one of Queensland's delegates to the Australian Board of Control in the 1960s, when he conducted a lonely campaign - on moral grounds - against Australian cricket links with apartheid South Africa. Most famously, just before the 1974-75 Ashes Test he sacked the Gabba's curator and took charge of preparing the Test pitch himself. Wearing shorts, wellingtons and a white pith helmet, the Lord Mayor of Brisbane went out to restore a pitch that looked more like a sea of mud. Perhaps the quintessential picture of Jones is of him sitting on the heavy roller, bellowing dictation while his secretary walked beside him. He was always controversial, and the England camp was deeply unhappy at the uneven bounce that allowed Jeff Thomson to begin his reign of terror. But Jones was still doing the job himself for the West Indies Test a year later. At the same time, he was in charge of the rebuilding of Darwin, devastated by Cyclone Tracy at Christmas 1974. Jones had no children and left a fortune estimated at more than $A200m (almost £100m) to charities - and to a foundation dedicated to giving Australia an elected president. The Gabba used to have a Clem Jones Stand, now demolished.

JONES, PETER HENRY, who died on December 29, 2007, aged 72, had a firstclass career that stretched across 15 seasons but only a brief heyday as a lefthanded all-rounder for Kent in the early 1960s. He reached a peak in 1961 when he scored 1,262 runs and took 77 wickets with his slow left-armers, winning his county cap and a place as Kent's regular No. 6. But the following season came to an abrupt halt when Fred Trueman broke his jaw at Gillingham, and then the rise of Derek Underwood reduced his opportunities. Jones had made his debut aged 18 in 1953, but had few chances until 1960 when he starred in a remarkable match at Tunbridge Wells: Kent (187) beat Worcestershire (25 and 61) in the last first-class match to be finished on the first day. On a spiteful, drying pitch, Jones flung his bat and rode his luck (Norman Gifford, playing the first of his 710 firstclass matches, put him down) to make 73, exactly 50 more than anyone else managed. He faded out of the team after 1964, reappearing briefly three years later when Underwood was playing for England. Underwood remembered him as "genuinely slow, bowling the flighted variety of left-arm spin rather than mean and flat like me". Jones later played successfully for Kidderminster in the Birmingham League and for Suffolk, helping them to the Minor Counties Championship in 1977 and 1979.

JOSEPH, RONALD FRANCIS, died on July 24, 2007, aged 88. Ron Joseph umpired seven first-class matches, all in Adelaide, between 1953-54 and 1970-71. JUGADE, SANJAY VASANT, died on May 28, 2007, aged 45. A fast-medium bowler, Jugade took 35 wickets in 14 matches for the Indian province of Vidarbha in the 1980s. His best return was six for 84 (and ten for 132 in the match) against Uttar Pradesh at Moradabad in 1987-88.

KERR, JOHN LAMBERT, OBE, CNZM, died on May 27, 2007, aged 96. Jack Kerr was a sound batsman, one of New Zealand's finest in their early Test years, although this is hardly reflected in his modest statistics - 212 runs at 19.27 in only seven Tests, at a time when New Zealand rarely played. Walter Hadlee, a Canterbury team-mate, thought Kerr a "majestic" batsman, and a fine punisher of anything loose, while R. T. Brittenden, the leading local cricket-writer of his time, wrote: "When fit and in his best form, there was no better New Zealand batsman to watch." Kerr came to prominence playing for Wanganui, one of New Zealand's minor associations, hitting two centuries in Hawke Cup matches in January 1928, but moved to Christchurch to further his chances of representative cricket. Some decent scores won him a trip to England in 1931, New Zealand's first Test tour, but he faded after a good start and did little in the series. Kerr continued to score heavily at home and, when a strong MCC team visited in 1935-36, he hit 146 not out against them for Canterbury, then 105 (again not out) and 132 for New Zealand, in two of the unofficial Tests: Errol Holmes, MCC's captain, called him "world-class". In 1937 Kerr was back in England, sometimes forming an allbespectacled opening pair with Hadlee, and had a better time of it than on his previous tour, collecting 1,205 runs, with three centuries. But again he made minimal impact in the Tests, although he did score 112 against a strong England XI at Folkestone late in the tour. After the war, he concentrated on business: he was an accountant, again like Hadlee, and joined him in many committee rooms as well. Kerr became chairman, and later president, of the New Zealand board. He was the senior Test cricketer at the time of his death, having made his debut in 1931, but was beaten as the world's oldest Test player by his friend Eric Tindill, who appeared later but was ten days older.

KERR, ROBERT, died of a heart attack in Jamaica on March 21, 2007, while following Ireland's fortunes during the World Cup. A former headmaster, Bob Kerr was 68, and had been president of the Irish Cricket Union in 2004. The Irish Senior Cup has been renamed in his memory.

KHEDKAR, VINAYAK ANANTRAO, died on August 27, 2007, aged 40, having suffered a heart attack on the way to the gym. He played nine Ranji Trophy matches for Maharashtra, scoring two hundreds as an opener - 110 on his firstclass debut against Saurashtra in December 1985, and 127 against Gujarat in his third match.

KIEL, Dr SIDNEY, died on July 19, 2007, the day after his 91st birthday. Sid Kiel was an opening bat who scored a century in his second match for Western Province, in December 1939. He passed three figures twice more, and was considered for the 1947 tour of England, after finishing the domestic season with 87 and 54 against Transvaal. But that turned out to be his final first-class appearance before he concentrated on medicine. Kiel was also an international athlete, holding the South African record for the 120 yards hurdles. He was fifth in the final at the 1938 Empire Games in Sydney, having refused a place at the 1936 Berlin Olympics in protest against Hitler's treatment of his fellow Jews.

KIMPTON, ROBERT WEBB, died on February 6, 2007, aged 93. "Wally" Kimpton played once for Western Australia, against the 1935-36 MCC team. For several years, he was regarded as one of the best athletes in the Perth competition, worth his place in a side for his fielding alone.

KININMONTH, PETER WYATT, who died on October 5, 2007, aged 83, was captain of the Scottish rugby team and kicked a famous drop goal to give Scotland victory over Wales in 1951. At Sedbergh School, however, he only played for the Third XV and concentrated on cricket: he came second in the 1942 bowling averages. Kininmonth's later cricket amounted to games for Free Foresters and I Zingari. In his seventies, he took up cheesemaking at his farm in Dorset and in 2006 won the National Cheese Lovers' Trophy.

LASHKARI, ANIL, who died on November 1, 2007, aged 73, was a left-hand batsman who played for Gujarat in the Ranji Trophy in the early 1950s. He represented an Indian XI in two matches against a strong Commonwealth touring team in 1953-54, making 47 and 55 at Ahmedabad against an attack including Peter Loader, Sonny Ramadhin and Frank Worrell. After a spell in the Central Lancashire League, Lashkari emigrated to America, and played several times in the annual fixture against Canada. He captained the United States in the 1979 ICC Trophy, when his son Neil was also in the side.

LAWRENCE, VICTOR JOHN WALTER MYLES, died on December 20, 2006, aged 78. John "Slogger" Lawrence was assistant secretary of MCC from 1975 to 1988, looking after the club's finances before taking responsibility for marketing and personnel. A jovial former wing commander with a luxuriant handlebar moustache, he was also a prominent rugby administrator, serving as secretary of London Scottish and co-ordinating several British Lions tours. His son, Lieutenant Robert Lawrence, was severely injured during the Falklands conflict, and the pair collaborated on a book which was then made into the high-profile TV drama Tumbledown. This publicised the incident but lost them a lot of friends in the services. Robert's wife later described her husband as "social semtex".

LAWSON, HOWARD MAURICE, who died on October 21, 2006, aged 92, played 45 matches for Hampshire over three seasons from 1935 to 1937, following in the footsteps of his father, Maurice. A fast-medium bowler, Lawson took 71 wickets in all at 36, with a best of five for 91 against Gloucestershire at Portsmouth in 1936. The previous season he had played for Gentlemen v Players at Folkestone, bowling Walter Hammond for 106. Father and son both captained the Basingstoke and North Hants club.

LEVISON, STANLEY, died on March 5, 2007, aged (probably) 85. Stan Levison umpired 68 Minor Counties matches, mainly in his native North-East, between 1969 and 1986, and also stood in one first-class game, when the Minor Counties played the touring Zimbabweans at Cleethorpes in 1985.