Foxes Flashback - Tony Riddington
Tue 22 Dec 2020
Tony Riddington (Born 22nd December, 1911)
Tony first played for Leicestershire’s Minor Counties team in 1929, aged 17 and a half, and played his last game for a county team in 1950. He played 128 matches for Leicestershire, scoring 3,650 runs and took 83 wickets.
He started off as a left handed batsman and occasional bowler, but his bowling developed in his period as a club professional in Scotland and Northern Ireland in the 1930s; in 1939 he took 113 wickets for Hawick. He saw war service in the RAF, mainly in Lancashire and he might have remained playing in the area as in 1945 he secured a Professional appointment with the Central Lancashire League Club, Castleton Moor.
Unfortunately, he sustained a broken arm and never took this up. When Leicestershire were building a team for 1946 he became one of the early recruits and he spent the next five years fulfilling a variety of roles in the side.
August 1946 contained a memorable week for him. A century against Northamptonshire CCC (and an innings victory) and a return of 5 for 34 against the ‘County Champions’; Yorkshire CCC, which included (according to their skipper, Brian Sellers) the ‘best caught and bowled I have ever seen’. Tony saved the game by batting out the final 35 minutes with a youthful Vic Munden.
He took 40 wickets in 1946, often opening the bowling and had an exceptionally low economy rate of little more than 1.5 runs an over.
The 1950s saw him on his travels again. In 1951 he coached at Uppingham School and played at Stourbridge in the Birmingham League, before moving north to Scotland once again. His first year at Kilmarnock saw him achieve the uncommon club double of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets, and helped them win the championship the next year. He then went on to finish his professional cricket with a season for Aberdeenshire.
His travels now ended, he returned to play for Countesthorpe in the South Leicestershire League, and in his final year (1960) he scored 495 runs and took 55 wickets. The highlight of these years was playing in the same team as his three sons. When batting with them he never called them for a single, he just told them to ‘watch his feet’.
