Maurice Burrows Balcony opened

Earlier today Leicestershire CCC’s Chief Executive Wasim Khan and Chairman of the Friends of Grace Road Roy Bent officially opened the Maurice Burrows Stand, which has been restored by the club with the help of a significant contribution of £12,000 from the Friends of Grace Road.

The Balcony was open to Members and spectators for the first time in the recent Specsavers County Championship fixture against Northamptonshire, and a ceremony took place at lunchtime on the first day of the game against Sri Lanka.

Wasim thanked the Friends for this fantastic donation and for the continuing support and hard working endeavours of their volunteers. The contribution towards the restoration of the stand will be marked by a plaque.

For the benefit of those too young to remember Maurice Burrows, Roy recalled that he was a lifelong follower of cricket and avid supporter of the County, whose games at Grace Road he watched with a group of other members, such as Sid Chamberlain, Richard Holdridge, John Peachey, Peter Norman and Carol Hooke from the seats on top of the pavilion, long since regarded as the best view in the ground.

Maurice, who became a Life Member of the Club in 1977, was a teacher of French at King’s Norton Grammar School in Birmingham where he enthralled pupils with stories of cricket on a regular basis. He also lived in Birmingham, but spent all of his summer school holidays staying with his Aunt in Belgrave, from where he used to ride to Grace Road on his old bike or travel on the Inner Circle bus because he never drove a car.

Maurice was affectionately known as Lord Burrows because he was very well spoken, educated at Jesus College Cambridge and had a penchant for giving everyone else an aristocratic title, normally a French one. Amongst these was his friendly adversary, Dave Vesty, for whom, like everyone else, he had the greatest respect even though they were like chalk and cheese, but who he christened Le Vicomte de la Vesty.

During the 1986 season, Maurice proudly and excitedly announced to his friends that he would see them more often at Grace Road the following year because he was taking early retirement in March 1987 at the age of 50.

This he duly did, but sadly Maurice died suddenly a month later in April 1987. Never having married, Maurice bequeathed £120,528 from his estate to the Leicestershire County Cricket Club. Much of this money was spent on the development of the outdoor cricket nets that you see today. Maurice would have been proud of that as he would of the club’s decision to name the balcony seating on top of the pavilion in his memory.

Maurice occasionally went to watch Leicestershire play away from Grace Road, of course most notably at Edgbaston, and Roy's most abiding memory of him is when he, Maurice, Dave Vesty, Graham Clarke and (he thinks) Doug and Sheila Ellis went to Swansea to see the County play Glamorgan in a 3-day game on 30^th May 1976.

They all went to a pub in the Mumbles, close to where they were staying, for dinner one evening and were joined by Barry Meyer and possibly the other umpire, Sam Cook. Maurice and Dave were in full flow on that evening, throwing insults and jokes towards each other all night. No-one else could get a word in edgeways but it was an hilarious evening.

It is such an honour for the Friends of Grace Road to now mark the re-opening of the Maurice Burrows Stand and to commemorate Maurice’s love of Leicestershire County Cricket Club, and the club in turn is thankful for the Friends' continued support of the club.

* Thanks to Ed Melia for the photograph of Wasim and Roy