Geoffrey Anson
| Personal information | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Geoffrey Frank Anson | ||||||||||||||
| Born | 8 October 1922 Sevenoaks, Kent, England | ||||||||||||||
| Died | 4 December 1977 (aged 55) Hastings, Sussex, England | ||||||||||||||
| Batting | Right-handed | ||||||||||||||
| Role | Batsman | ||||||||||||||
| Domestic team information | |||||||||||||||
| Years | Team | ||||||||||||||
| 1947 | Cambridge University | ||||||||||||||
| 1947 | Kent | ||||||||||||||
| FC debut | 10 May 1947 Cambridge University v Essex | ||||||||||||||
| Last FC | 23 August 1947 Kent v Somerset | ||||||||||||||
| Career statistics | |||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
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[edit]
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[edit]
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[edit]
- ^ a b Geoffrey Anson, CricInfo. Retrieved 2018-09-16.
- ^ a b c d Geoffrey Anson, CricketArchive. Retrieved 2018-09-16. (subscription required)
- ^ 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.)
- ^ Cartwright, p.243.
- ^ a b Miscellaneous matches played by Geoffrey Anson, CricketArchive. Retrieved 2018-09-16. (subscription required)
- ^ Supplement to the London Gazette, 11 May 1943, p.2109. Retrieved 2018-09-16.
- ^ a b Anson, Geoffrey Frank, British Army Officers, 1939-1945. Retrieved 2018-09-16.
- ^ Supplement to the London Gazette, 24 May 1945, p.2648. Retrieved 2018-09-16.
- ^ 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.
- ^ a b Morgan R (2016) 'West Africa goes multiracial' in Real International Cricket: A History in One Hundred Scorecards. (Available online. Retrieved 2018-09-16.)
- ^ a b Anson, Geoffrey Frank, MC, Obituaries before 1978, Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, 1979. Retrieved 2018-09-16.