Michael Falcon: Norfolk’s Gentleman Cricketer

Stephen Musk

Jan. 2010 · Lives in Cricket Boek 15 · Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians

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Michael Falcon (1888-1976) was educated at Harrow and Cambridge and proved himself to be a good enough fast bowler to be selected fourteen times for the Gentlemen. He declined to qualify by residence to play for Middlesex, preferring instead to play for his beloved Norfolk in the Minor Counties Championship. In this competition his exploits as a hard-hitting, fast-bowling all-rounder made him a dominant figure in Norfolk elevens.

Appointed captain in 1912, he was still in office in 1946; he was the only man to skipper his county before the First World War and after the Second. An astute and popular leader, he was worth his place in the team to the end, finishing top of the batting averages in his final season, when aged 58.

Thought of highly enough by the authorities to be co-opted on to the MCC Committee at the early age of 26, he was the only bowler of genuine pace to sit on the sub-committee which ruled on bodyline. He is most famous for the part he played in helping Archie MacLaren’s eleven to defeat Warwick Armstrong’s previously invincible 1921 tourists. Informed opinion suggests that his refusal to play for Middlesex cost him the chance to play Test cricket, but his loyalty to Norfolk was paramount and he never expressed any regrets.

As a Tory M.P. and a landowning grandee, one might expect him to have been a somewhat remote and forbidding character, but he was a quiet and modest man with a love of the game which gave him a bond with the common cricketer. On one occasion he was more than ready to lead a singalong with the players of a village cricket club.

Stephen Musk tells a story of privilege, public service and the pastime of cricket.

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Stephen Musk was born in Norwich. Aged twelve his father suggested that he cycle the four miles to the County Ground at Lakenham to watch Norfolk play. He has rarely missed a home day’s play since. Educated at the Norwich School and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, he was awarded a doctorate in cell biology in 1987 and a career in scientific research beckoned.

He is the author of Lionel Robinson: Cricket at Old Buckenham (ACS, Lives in Cricket: 38) and George Raikes: 'Muscular Christianity?' (ACS, Lives in Cricket: 46).

The undoubted highlight of Stephen’s life was on 12 August 1978, when he was ‘plucked’ from the crowd at Lakenham as a substitute fielder for Norfolk against neighbouring rivals Suffolk. Although he had always been an appalling fielder, fortune smiled that Saturday, despite the murky light and drenching rain. He even had a favourable mention in the press