Geoffrey Anson
Personal information
Full name
Geoffrey Frank Anson
Born(1922-10-08)8 October 1922
Sevenoaks, Kent, England
Died4 December 1977(1977-12-04) (aged 55)
Hastings, Sussex, England
BattingRight-handed
RoleBatsman
Domestic team information
YearsTeam
1947Cambridge University
1947Kent
FC debut10 May 1947 Cambridge University v Essex
Last FC23 August 1947 Kent v Somerset
Career statistics
Competition First-class
Matches 10
Runs scored 460
Batting average 25.55
100s/50s 1/2
Top score 106
Catches/stumpings 6/0
Source: CricInfo, 19 March 2017

Geoffrey Frank Anson (8 October 1922 – 4 December 1977) was an English cricketer and civil servant.[1] A right-handed batsman, he played ten first-class cricket matches during the 1947 English cricket season for Cambridge University and Kent County Cricket Club.[2] He also played cricket for a team of Europeans in Nigeria whilst serving in the British Colonial Service.

Early life and war service

Anson was born at Sevenoaks in Kent in 1922 and educated at Harrow School, where he played cricket and captained the side during his final season in 1941.[3] Wisden considered that he might have been the "best schoolboy batsman of the year" and described him as being a "daring stroke player".[4] He initially went up to the University of Cambridge in 1941 and played cricket for the university side during the summer of 1942,[5] before serving in the armed forces during World War II. He was commissioned in the Coldstream Guards as a 2nd Lieutenant in April 1943[6] and served in the 4th Battalion, part of the Guards Armoured Division.[7] He was awarded the Military Cross in May 1945 whilst serving as a Lieutenant.[8] Anson was serving as a tank commander during Operation Veritable, an offensive along the Siegfried Line on the Dutch-German border near Nijmegen in February. He had dismounted to organise mine clearance parties to allow the capture of Frasselt by the 9th Cameronians.[9]

Cricket and later life

He went back to Cambridge in 1946 before leaving to join the Colonial Service the following summer.[10][11] Anson made his first-class cricket debut for the university against Essex in May 1947[2] and was set to win a Blue before "the claims of the Colonial Service forced him to withdraw from the side and he was unable to play in the University match".[11] Later in the year he played seven County Championship matches for Kent, his last first-class match coming against Somerset in August.[2]

Anson worked in the Colonial Service and played a number of matches for Nigeria Europeans against Gold Coast Europeans between 1949 and 1956.[5][10] He later played for the Kent Second XI between 1957 and 1959[2] and worked as an area manager for the Ford Motor Credit Company based in London.[7] He died at Hastings in 1977 aged 55.[1]

References

  1. 1 2 Geoffrey Anson, CricInfo. Retrieved 2018-09-16.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Geoffrey Anson, CricketArchive. Retrieved 2018-09-16. (subscription required)
  3. ↑ Cartwright GHM Lt-Col The Public Schools, 1941, in Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, pp.239-247. Retrieved 2018-09-16. (Archived version. Archived 2018-09-16.)
  4. ↑ Cartwright, p.243.
  5. 1 2 Miscellaneous matches played by Geoffrey Anson, CricketArchive. Retrieved 2018-09-16. (subscription required)
  6. ↑ Supplement to the London Gazette, 11 May 1943, p.2109. Retrieved 2018-09-16.
  7. 1 2 Anson, Geoffrey Frank, British Army Officers, 1939-1945. Retrieved 2018-09-16.
  8. ↑ Supplement to the London Gazette, 24 May 1945, p.2648. Retrieved 2018-09-16.
  9. ↑ Paget J (ed) (2000) The Reichswald and Rhineland: Operation VERITABLE, February-March 1945. 4th (Tank) and 5th Battalions, in The Coldstream Guards, 1650–2000, p.138. Lee Cooper: Barnsley.
  10. 1 2 Morgan R (2016) 'West Africa goes multiracial' in Real International Cricket: A History in One Hundred Scorecards. (Available online. Retrieved 2018-09-16.)
  11. 1 2 Anson, Geoffrey Frank, MC, Obituaries before 1978, Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, 1979. Retrieved 2018-09-16.

Geoffrey Anson at ESPNcricinfo

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