HUW TURBERVILL: Stamford School's head teacher, who was a crisp stroke-maker and extremely reliable left-arm medium-pacer as a player, represented Suffolk alongside the pair in the Minor Counties
If you are a cricket-mad youngster and your head teacher loves the game, that cannot be a bad thing, can it? As it happens, Chris Seal insists he devotes equal time at Stamford School to all three main sports, the others being rugby and hockey. Youngsters could do worse than turn to the former Suffolk allrounder for guidance, however.
It was good to catch up with Seal, 52. He taught at my school, Woodbridge, after I left, and my enthusiastic reports about his exploits for Copdock & old Ipswichian CC in the East Anglian Daily Times might have helped just a little – I think – get him a gig in Minor Counties cricket. He played for Suffolk from 1997–2005, alongside Derek Randall, and Bill Athey, and under captain Phil Caley, the county's highest ever run-scorer and one of the finest players not to have moved into the first-class game.
Seal was a crisp stroke-maker and extremely reliable left-arm medium-pacer, who also shone in Derbyshire club cricket. And as a teacher of PE and history, he went from Woodbridge to Trent College, then Millfield (coaching with Richard Ellison), and then Thailand and Singapore, and has now happily resurfaced (no pun intended) in Lincolnshire. Stamford's cricket pro is Matthew Hoggard.
"I'm at every rugby fixture, and watch lots of hockey, so I don't favour cricket," he told The Cricketer. "I'm enormously keen to see a thriving cricket programme here, though. We've had Alex Green and Josh Hull (both Leicestershire and England) go through the school. And after eight years abroad, I am so pleased to see how much the girls' game has taken off in this country.
Derek Randall in action against Sri Lanka (Allsport UK /Allsport)
"Cricket has given me a hell of a lot, so I want youngsters to have the same incredible experiences with their team-mates. The game is a great help with exams; it gives you balance, rather than just staying indoors the whole time with your head in the books."
Becoming a head "crept on him", he says. "At Trent, I was running a boarding house and cricket, and I thought that was it; I loved it. But then I decided I wanted a bit more in terms of leadership. I'd had about eight years as a deputy head, and people were asking why I didn't want to become a head. Now I realise it allows you massive influence on the programmes you are running. You can support and influence more students and staff, and shape people's life chances, the higher you go. You decide what you think is important in schools.
"The longer I have done it, the more I realise that I'm supporting and developing staff and giving them opportunities to shape the community. It's as empowering as seeing a youngster you have coached hitting a cover drive for four.
"Three people I worked with in Singapore now run their own schools, and I think a fourth who deserves it is about to get their chance, and that’s brilliant. Of course, everything that goes wrong is blamed on you as a head, but everything that goes well is at your door as well."
At Stamford, Hoggard is working with the youngsters through winter and spring with head of cricket Josh Weller. They are also now looking for another cricket pro to work "on the pathway, getting young cricketers ready for the next step". Seal says it could be male or female, and is an admirer of former England seamer Lucy Pearson's work at Solihull School.
Seal was brought up in the North-East, before moving to Kent at the age of nine. He had his first taste of cricket at Chatham Grammar School.
His game took off at Loughborough University, though, thanks to the facilities there. "I was pretty hopeless as a junior, but netting twice a week was brilliant for me. I hit and bowled 1,000s of balls, self-taught, as we didn't have a coach." He started in the third team, then captained the 2s and also played in the 1s. He recalls a tough semi-final against a strong Durham University 2s side that featured Brett Haimes and Chris Hollins, who became famous on television.
Josh Hull, a Stamford alumnus, made his England Test debut in the 2024 summer (Getty Images)
In club cricket, he played for Copdock then Clacton, before his job switch to the Midlands saw him play for Ticknall & Sandiacre. He recalls one game facing Devon Malcolm at one end and Northants' Craig Jennings at the other, with former West Indies captain Jimmy Adams at cover.
"At times the Derbyshire Premier League was as hard as any cricket I have played," he said.
He later had a spell with Normandy CC in Surrey with Stuart Meaker and Suffolk bowler Paul King, and finally he played for a village called Butleigh near Millfield (he coached the school's 2s there, helping them beat a Blundell's School 1s side that featured Dom Bess). He says moving to Thailand at the age of 44 was a good thing as it forced him to stop playing, otherwise he might never have given up. After suffering spinal fusion in 2018, he now plays golf instead.
"There wasn't a lot of cricket in Thailand, but we did have Mike Gatting come out to coach," he added. "There was more in Singapore, at Tanglin Trust School, with lots of good young Indian and English players."
I enjoyed watching him play for Suffolk; he managed 41 Minor Counties Championship appearances and 20 MCCA Knockout Trophy matches.
"It was an amazing insight into what cricket really looks like," he said. "Watching Derek Randall bat, even in his late 40s, was a privilege. Likewise, Bill Athey."
I also vividly recall him being hit on the head at Shenley by a horrid bouncer from Hertfordshire quick, Steve Andrew, formerly of Essex and Hampshire. "That still makes me wince," he said.
Another thing we have in common is that we have both worked with Andy Afford, the former Nottinghamshire left-arm spinner. He recruited me at The Cricketer and taught cricket with Seal at Trent College.
"Aff was the first person who made cricket make sense to me," he said. "He told the lads to bowl the ball into the wicket with pace, be aggressive with the bat – if you have the opportunity, whack it – and be the very best you can as a fielder, with no excuses.
"At Trent in 2005, we lost all our games. We went to Australia that winter, and the next two summers we went two years unbeaten. The T20 Schools Cup started at the time, and we were tailor-made for that."
Stamford School's cricketers will soon be playing that aggressive brand of cricket soon, one suspects.
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