Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

Butch White succeeded the late Bob Clarke as groundsman and cricket pro at Horsham although there is no mention of CH in The Telegraph obituary.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituar ... White.html

What years Andy ?

Name doesn't ring any bells !

A year or two after my time as the late Bob Clarke was there when I left.

I think RR, Huntertitis, Ajarn Philip and maybe CHAZ would have been at School during Butch White's time though.

Bob sadly died in 1981 but he had left CH a few years before that. Hilda, his wife, worked in the Tuck Shop. She was a lovely lady.

Plum Senior will know I'm sure.

Yes he was there in my time, 1978-1984, but being an Athlete rather than cricketeer, I did not have much contact with him.
Having said this, the First X1 square was always immaculate....better than the state of the First XV rugby pitch in any case!

CHAZ wrote:Yes he was there in my time, 1978-1984, but being an Athlete rather than cricketeer, I did not have much contact with him.
Having said this, the First X1 square was always immaculate....better than the state of the First XV rugby pitch in any case!

I did a bit of athletics as well as cricket although cricket was always my preference when they clashed. Was JM "Des" Carrington in charge of athletics in your time? I think he did a very good job considering that (in my time anyway) athletics was a low profile sport compared to rugby and cricket which were the main two. Association football was still an informal rather than formal sport when I was there.

Was Butch White at the School for the whole of your time?

Mid A 15 wrote:[ Association football was still an informal rather than formal sport when I was there.

You're telling me! Norman Fryer, who was in charge of Rugby, used to put up notices headed simply "Football". It meant Rugby, of course. The only soccer I can ever remember playing on grass (i.e. not asphalt soccer) was "New Boys' Soccer" -- for those of us who hadn't been to prep school and didn't know the rules of Rugby yet.

In my day Athletics was run by Pop Beaven, the one-eyed chemistry teacher. I think he was more interested in the statistics than the actual sport. He was fanatically tidy, except when it came to numbers. The following exchange sums it up:

Boy in Latin class, following return of exam papers: Please Sir, what are the marks out of?
MacNutt (for it was he): 100 of course, what do you think?
Boy: The chemistry exam was out of 81.
MacNutt (with deep sigh): These scientists!

As Bogey Fryer was my housemaster, I can tell you, he used to go apopleptic if he even HEARD soccer being discussed.

It was only one short of a beating offence !

I'm doing a brief obituary for Butch White for the next issue of The Old Blue, and wondered if anyone could come up with reasonably accurate dates that he was at CH, as there is no record of him on the CHA database?

So far we have narrowed it down that he started sometime after 1972 but before 1978, and was still there in 1984. As he was only 72 when he died this year, he wouldn't have retired until around 2000, but was he at CH all that time?

All help gratefully appreciated!!

Jo wrote:I'm doing a brief obituary for Butch White for the next issue of The Old Blue, and wondered if anyone could come up with reasonably accurate dates that he was at CH, as there is no record of him on the CHA database?

So far we have narrowed it down that he started sometime after 1972 but before 1978, and was still there in 1984. As he was only 72 when he died this year, he wouldn't have retired until around 2000, but was he at CH all that time?

All help gratefully appreciated!!

Jo,

I found this which suggests 1978 as his start date.

http://www.chassociation.org/news/archi ... july03.php

I have a Wisden or two at home from the nineties and I'm pretty sure that he is not named as the School cricket professional in either of them which suggests that he left shortly after Chaz.

I will check when I get home.

EDIT: 1992 Wisden GRJ Roope and PJ Graves are named as cricket pros so he had gone by then.

1992 Wisden reviews 1991 season so almost certainly gone by then too.

Have you tried contacting Howard Holdsworth?

Ajarn Philip wrote:Have you tried contacting Howard Holdsworth?

I don't think Howard came back to CH until 1992 or thereabouts. However he might still know nevertheless.

He was a walking Wisden as I recall as well as being a damned fine player!

Wow, I didn't know until Butch's obit that Housey had a cricket pro, now I discover that it's listed in Wisden and one of them was Graham Roope, no less.

Seriously, thanks for the help, will PM Howard.