Johnny Briggs: Poor Johnny

Stuart Brodkin

may 2007 · Lives in Cricket Libro 2 · Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians

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In an Edwardian era of cricketing giants like WG Grace and Archie MacLaren, little Johnny Briggs (1862-1902) stood tall despite his diminutive stature. He was one of Lancashire and England’s most popular and entertaining cricketers in an age when cricket was beginning to capture the public imagination with huge crowds turning out for the big games in the big cities of England and Australia.

Briggs toured Australia on six occasions when travelling Down Under meant an arduous sea voyage and, in all, took part in eleven Ashes series. To this day, he remains the only cricketer to take a hat-trick and score a century in cricket’s oldest and most combative series of matches.

A true working-class hero, Briggs played to the gallery, but was nevertheless a hard-working professional who took on a prodigious workload. He began as a match-winning batsman and became a world-class bowler and was always a dynamic fielder in his favourite position in the covers. But he suffered intermittently from epilepsy and the second of two major attacks suffered at a Leeds music hall on the evening of the first day of the Headingley Test against Australia finally cut short his life at the age of 39.

He died in a lunatic asylum in a tragic and untimely end to a marvellous career.

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Stuart Brodkin is a freelance sports journalist, who specialises in cricket and horse racing.