'Poet of cricket' remembered on 100th birthday
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Former England captain Michael Atherton has unveiled a plaque honouring the journalist remembered as "the finest of all cricket writers", John Woodcock.
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Woodcock, who was chief cricket correspondent at The Times between 1954 and 1987 and was once described as "the poet laureate of cricket", died in 2021.
An event remembering Woodcock took place on Saturday at St Nicholas Church in Longparish, Hampshire, on what would have been the writer's 100th birthday.
Unveiling a stone plaque featuring an image of a woodcock bird in flight at the event, Atherton described his Times predecessor as "one of the best".
"He did it for a long, long time and saw the tremendous changes that the game went through," the former Lancashire and England batsman said.
"His first tour to Australia in 1954-55 as The Times cricket correspondent they went by boat, and it took them six weeks to get to Australia.
"By the mid 80s, when he did his last Ashes tour, that would have been a very different scenario.
"There was a different relationship between journalists and players then than there is now... it was a slightly different time and perhaps there was less need for as much pointed criticism as there is today."
Former England captain Michael Atherton unveiled the plaque at an event on Saturday [BBC]During his lengthy career, Woodcock followed England for The Times through 17 Ashes series - from the halcyon days of Len Hutton through to the swashbuckling era of Ian Botham.
In total, he contributed cricketing articles to the newspaper for 66 years - with his final piece coming less than a year before his death.
Atherton followed in Woodcock's footsteps to become The Times's chief cricket correspondent in 2008.
"He chronicled the game with good humour and wisdom and knowledge," the former England opener said of his predecessor.
"He had seen all the great players play and had this tremendous knowledge and love for the game."
Woodcock, far left, was The Times's chief cricket correspondent between 1954 and 1987 [Getty Images]Alongside his work at The Times, Woodcock also edited Wisden, the cricketers' almanack, for six years during the 1980s.
His death at the age of 94 in 2021 was met with an outpouring of grief from the cricketing world.
Among those to pay tribute was former England seamer and Guardian cricket correspondent Mike Selvey, who described Woodcock as "the finest of all cricket writers".
Half a decade on, friends, family and colleagues celebrated Woodcock's life at St Nicholas Church - where his family's connection dates back 250 years.
Woodcock's former neighbour Brian Sanders was one of the people who came up with the idea to permanently commemorate the writer in the village he called home for most of his life.
"People remembered him and talked about him, but there was nothing to remember him so we conceived an idea of getting a plaque," Sanders said.
The plaque stands in St Nicholas Church in Longparish [BBC]Following the plaque unveiling, Sanders said: "There were stories about him not wanting to make a fuss, but he would have been pleased.
"He just loved Longparish."
The team behind the commemoration raised more money for the tribute than initially expected, with excess funds donated to the youth section of Longparish Cricket Club - reinvesting in the future of the game Woodcock devoted his life to.