The glory years at Taunton: 'For five years Somerset appeared unstoppable'

Vic Marks, Nigel Popplewell and Brian Rose recall the glory days at Taunton with Jeremy Blackmore...

A breed of 21st-century westcountry heroes are creating new legends at Taunton. Yet for many, the name Somerset evokes memories of a bygone age, an unforgettable cast of local characters and three of the game’s greatest players.

In 1979, Brian Rose’s Somerset won the first two trophies in the county’s history. For five years they appeared unstoppable, winning every limited-overs title at least once, supported at every step by the cider army.

The seeds for the glory years, as they became known, were sown in the early 1970s. Somerset had no real development system in place. Instead they relied heavily on imports from other counties.

Gradually though, the club began phasing out its stalwarts. Chairman Roy Kerslake invested in a batch of young cricketers, ironically under the captaincy of the indomitable Brian Close, a former Yorkshire skipper, by then well into his 40s.

First, Rose and opening partner Peter Denning, who had batted together as teenagers, joined. Ian Botham made his senior debut in 1973. Then, one day in April 1974, Viv Richards, Vic Marks and Peter Roebuck were among a further group of youngsters to arrive.

It was, says Marks, a radical change. “We were all wide-eyed. We knew within one innings that Viv was something astonishing. In Ian we saw a larger-than-life, gung-ho, powerful character. And off we went, really.”

In charge of this group was Close. He was just what Somerset needed. Rose describes him as abrasive, belligerent and eccentric but someone who instilled a Test match mentality in a side that had lacked a ruthlessness or winning edge.

Marks recalls a leader with an astonishing amount of self-belief but discounts the myth that Close was too hard on the younger players.

“We have very happy memories of him. If you ever talk to Ian or Viv, you basically hear nothing but praise. Viv just marvelled at his bravery. In hindsight we realise we were incredibly lucky to have had [playing coach] Tom Cartwright and Close at the start of our careers, one a purveyor of wisdom and one just a crazy, magnificent sort of phenomenon.

“Then we realised within a few weeks as far as Viv was concerned and maybe a year or two with Both, that we ended up playing with two of the very best cricketers of the era.”

When Close retired at the end of 1977, Rose took over the captaincy with almost all the ingredients in place to pose a serious threat in all competitions. Inheriting a group of strong characters, his solution was to make his own decisions rather than take a more consultative approach, which could result in a range of conflicting opinions. It proved effective not least because he had players able to execute his plans, who had grown up together and accepted his authority.

Marks saw Rose as almost the polar opposite to his predecessor: “Close was instinctive, naturally aggressive in a curious way, putting people in daft positions. Very good at driving home a victory on the field. Whereas Rosey was a strategist rather than a brilliant tactician, and pretty methodical.”

In hindsight, Marks says it seems obvious that Rose should have been Close’s heir, although that was not necessarily the case at the time because he had been a quiet presence in the dressing room, someone just determined to score runs.

Marks saw a change in Rose’s batting style on assuming the captaincy from a grafter who played largely low-risk shots. “He suddenly reverted to what he was like probably as an 18-year-old and played with so much more freedom and became even more dangerous because he let himself go and became an aggressor.”

Indeed, the players soon realised their skipper was a man with an inner steel.

“He was incredibly gutsy and determined,” says Marks. “He wanted us to be tougher and meaner, almost less friendly, and we learned gradually that he was prepared to take tough decisions.

‘We weren’t designed to grind out result after result, like Middlesex and Essex, who had it in them to really concentrate on Championship cricket’

“He had a lot of faith in the young group. It’s never easy to move the older ones on, but he was prepared to do that and give opportunities to the likes of myself and Roebuck and he hastened our passage into being regulars. He still kept you guessing, you never quite knew what he was thinking some of the time, but it worked. He was lucky in that it’s all a question of timing whether you’re Brearley or Rose, in that he had Viv and Ian who were still young enough and hungry and driven both at Test level and county level. He stayed calm and was strong without being a wizard pulling rabbits out of hats like Closey.”

Rose’s first year in charge saw the side come agonisingly close to instant success. Across one early September weekend, Somerset lost the Gillette Cup final before a two-run defeat to Essex at Taunton the next day. That meant they missed out on the Sunday League title due to an inferior run-rate. Yet from such despair were sown the seeds for future success. The defeat to Essex had a devastating effect. Rose sat in the dressing room with a towel over his head while Richards took out his frustrations by smashing his bat. Eventually Kerslake said the players should come outside where thousands were waiting.

For that reason, Marks remembers 1978 more than the triumphs a year later. “We just wanted to shrivel up and go somewhere and they just cheered and chanted. That had a real lasting memory and helped fuel us thereafter. We couldn’t understand why they were doing that, because we thought we’d let everyone down.”

The crowd rallied behind the team again in spring 1979, lifting them from perhaps even greater despondency. Rose took the controversial decision to declare at Worcester in a limited-overs group match to ensure Somerset’s progress through to the quarter-finals. The outcry was immediate, and the club was ejected from the competition.Rain washed out most of Somerset’s next Championship game at Edgbaston – leaving a lot of time to reflect on the fallout – before the team made a triumphant return to Taunton 10 days later.

“Everything was getting worse and we were just mulling it all over and thinking we were pariahs,” recalls Marks. “It wasn’t until we came back to Taunton and there was a huge cheer when we went out to field. Rosey got 25 and it was as if he’d got 100 when he was out. I think he thought, ‘We’ll be alright here now’.

“It was obviously a stupid thing to do, in hindsight. But it was instructive in that it didn’t split us up at all, it almost galvanised us, even though it was a bit of a waste, we’d have qualified anyway.”

Rose admits to being emotional on his way back to the pavilion that day because of the reception he received and says it made him determined whenever he went out to bat.

The final pieces of the jigsaw fell into place. Joel Garner finished his stint in the Lancashire leagues and was playing full-time for Somerset. He provided firepower even when Botham was with England. He was ably backed up by Hallam Moseley and Colin Dredge, who Rose and Marks describe as true team men, captain’s dreams who were willing to bowl all day.

In a mirror image of the previous year, Somerset headed to Lord’s in September where they beat Northamptonshire in the Gillette Cup final. Richards stroked 11 boundaries in an innings of 117 while Garner claimed 6 for 29. The following day, they travelled to Trent Bridge to defeat Nottinghamshire comfortably and claim the Sunday League title, thereby sealing the double.

It seems unthinkable now to ask a team that had just won a title to travel overnight and effectively play another final the next day. Yet such modern-day considerations never occurred.

Marks says that while they knew they were a strong side with three of the world’s best players, Somerset were still highly conscious of their lack of success. Winning at Lord’s was therefore a big burden lifted.

“This team had never won anything, and we ought to. So, there was a lot of tension. There was more relief after the first one. We didn’t celebrate much, packed our bags, trekked up to Nottingham. Somehow, we were always going to win that one because the pressure was off. We may have been a bit tired, but we were pretty relaxed in a good way. It was always going to fall into place.”

Nigel Popplewell, a contemporary of Roebuck’s at Cambridge University, joined in 1979 and became aware this was far from a mere holiday job. For him, the seminal moment was taking a catch in a low-scoring away game at Middlesex. “I dived forward, it was quite a good catch, crucial game. They all were. I looked up and Rosey was charging towards me with the biggest smile I’ve ever seen. It was just one of those little incidents that pointed me towards this being something that was really worthwhile. It wasn’t just an amateur game played for money. It was a really intense experience.”

Among the other players who formed the nucleus of that triumphant side was Rose’s opening partner Denning, known as Dasher for his speed across the ground.

That partnership had a big impact in the Sunday League because invariably the openers would get the side off to a good start before the big guns came in.

The contrast of styles between the two left-handed openers was key, says Marks. “Dasher loved to carve it square on the offside, give him any width and he would crack it square of the wicket down to third man. He could always find the gap there, with his tiny little light bat, and Rosey was more of a driver and a clipper off the legs. So, it was a bit confusing for every bowler. Also, they ran without calling.”

‘We were all wide-eyed. We knew within one innings that Viv was something astonishing. Ian was larger than life, powerful. And off we went’

Providing ballast in the middle order, and later as opener, Roebuck scored more than 23,000 runs for Somerset. He played a key role between Richards and Botham and was unlucky never to play for England. Roebuck’s relationship with Botham later soured after Somerset’s decision not to re-employ Richards and Garner in 1986 but Marks is keen to point out that the pair got on well until then, revelling in the contrast between their respective characters.

“They’d have ridiculous arguments about stuff like politics. Pete wrote books with Ian and so for almost a decade, there was mutual respect. This was not a running tension from when they first met. The captaincy issues probably brought it all to a head, but it’s always worth noting that this was not a lifelong feud.”

By 1980 Botham was England captain with Rose recalled for three Tests against the touring West Indians, which meant that Richards and Garner were also missing for much of the season, reducing the potency of Somerset’s attack.

Despite this impact, Somerset still finished second in the Sunday League and fifth in the Championship, boosted by the presence of Sunil Gavaskar.

A year later, Somerset returned to winning ways, adding the Benson & Hedges Cup to their trophy cabinet thanks to another century in a Lord’s final for Richards and another five-wicket haul for Garner.

It was also the closest this Somerset side came to winning the Championship. Rose cites international call-ups and injury problems as reasons for this anomaly, although he refuses to use them as excuses. He points out that Garner’s workload had to be carefully managed, while playing home games at Taunton made it difficult to win.

Garner had a remarkable 1981, taking 88 wickets in the Championship, a big reason for Somerset’s competitiveness. Popplewell believes the two games Garner missed at the Weston Festival that year were crucial: “If I was going to point to one thing where we had a realistic chance, if Joel had played those games, we’d have won the Championship.”

For Marks, Somerset were clearly a better one-day team. “Beefy was at his best in the late ’70s as a bowler. So we were a bit unbalanced in that we had Joel, occasionally we had Beefy and then there were the rest of us. I’m not sure temperamentally we were quite as well-equipped for the long slog that you need to be able to win the Championship as opposed to turning it on in a run in the NatWest. We never had a complete attack. But it’s a disappointment that we never got beyond that third in 1981.”

Popplewell agrees: “We weren’t designed to grind out result after result, like Middlesex and Essex, who somehow had it in them each year to really concentrate on Championship cricket. I certainly wasn’t a person like that.”

Instead in 1982 Somerset returned to Lord’s to win another one-day final in comprehensive style. They skittled Notts for 130 and then made short work of the run chase. Indeed, by 8pm that evening, Rose was already proudly holding up the trophy back home at a packed Woolpack Inn in St Georges, Weston-super-Mare.

Rose and Popplewell believe Notts froze in the face of the opposition, noting how nervous their skipper Clive Rice appeared at the toss. Somerset’s reputation played a huge part, says Popplewell: “You never see how you’re perceived by other people, but clearly around that era we were dominant.”

Marks observed the same effect on Kent’s batsmen during a quarter-final at Taunton. Garner and Botham bowled the opposition out cheaply, cheered on by a fervent crowd. “I watched the Kent guys come out and they seemed to get paler and paler. It really was quite an intimidating place to be and Joel and Both were rushing in.”

1983 was the final triumphant summer for that legendary side as they won the club’s last trophy for 18 years. It was though, a painful year for Rose, who missed much of the season through an injury he feared might be career-ending. It was also his last year in charge.

On a grey, overcast day at Lord’s, Somerset emerged victorious over Kent. Rose admits to mixed emotions seeing Botham lift the trophy while he was still club captain.

The county narrowly missed out on the Sunday League title by virtue of an inferior run-rate. Unlike in 1979, they were unable to pick themselves up and win the day after a Lord’s final. “We were clearly  slightly emotionally hungover from the previous day,” says Popplewell, “and so didn’t play our best at Worcester on Sunday, which is a pity because we’d have won the double.”

Somerset’s effectiveness waned after 1983. Marks says some of the issues stemmed from decisions over the captaincy, but adds that Kerslake, who had been the key figure in the club’s evolution, left. Further, he believes that people were almost intimidated to join Somerset from the outside.

“I’m not sure that there was that much forethought and planning about rebuilding the team that was creaking, partly through age, partly through a lack of perhaps the same sort of hunger. It’s amazing how quickly it can all fall apart.”

Popplewell has just retired after a second career as a solicitor: “It’s heavyweight work, but nothing I’ve ever done has been as difficult as playing professional cricket.

“People like Brian and the rest of the team made it such an important thing in my life, and worth really striving for. We had superstars, but everybody took responsibility. Viv and Joel knew that, and they had the confidence in the rest of us that nobody would shirk, and everybody would stand up for each other.”

Marks recalls the era thus: “You could go down and see the greatest batsman in the world 60 yards away. You could see Both in his pomp, a great atmosphere plus the band of locals who were easily identified with. And it was always on telly. Even people not from Somerset have that picture.”

This article was published in the March edition of The Cricketer - the home of the best cricket analysis and commentary, covering the international, county, women's and amateur game

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