Running the Whole Shooting Match - Ossie Wheatley, cricket administrator (Part 1)

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In this episode we return to our chat with Ossie Wheatley.  He finished as a player in 1969 but before that he was already becoming involved in the administration of the game.

To begin, he gives us an outline of his career, noting his involvement with English cricket form 1963 onwards.  He tells us the various committees on which he served and the roles he undertook including being a Test selector.  Latterly, he took up positions with the Sports Council of Wales.  Along the way he gives a bit of background to his career including his recollections of the development of junior cricket in Wales.  Most importantly, he intervened during the development of the ECB to ensure that the organisation would be known as the England and Wales Cricket Board, an insertion that became crucial, amongst other things, to attracting Test cricket to Wales in 2009.

He asserts his belief in the importance of successful elite sports teams in the development of cricket in any particular place.

We talk a little about Leslie Deakins, ex secretary of Warwickshire County Cricket Club and his impact on the club and creating Edgbaston as a Test ground.

We talk about the Clarke Report in 1965, what it set out to do, who was part of the committee and what it achieved.  Along the way he talks about the nature of professional cricketers and the way they ensure they control the developments in the game and what might be the best way for cricket to develop.  He airs his concern that developments today may mean the success of a few ‘super’ clubs at the expense of the others.

He talks about the experience of being a Test selector which he was for two years from 1972 to 1974.

We finish this episode by talking about how Ossie became Chairman of Glamorgan County Cricket Club in 1976.  The team was experiencing a crisis with player sackings, Majid Khan leaving the club and a challenge to the committees running of the club.  He talks about his deep concerns over the involvement of overseas players in the game and how it brought him to the point of standing down from the chairman’s role.  He also talks about the poor facilities that existed in Wales for elite cricket and how that impacted on Glamorgan’s fortunes.

We talk briefly about Glamorgan’s visit to Lords in 1977 for the Gillette Cup Final and end with Ossie’s reflections on Glamorgan as a club and where it was in the late 70s and early 80s.