Didn’t you used to be… Bill Athey
When asked to describe his playing style, Bill Athey chooses the word ‘careful’. His summary is as neat and efficient as the batting which brought more than 25,000 first-class runs over more than two decades. He gave full value to Yorkshire, Gloucestershire and Sussex as a reliable pro and also proved himself comfortable on the game’s greatest stages as an opening batsman with England.
Indeed, but for selectorial inconsistency, he would be viewed in the same light as any of his 1980s England peers. While many of his Ashes-winning colleagues have gone into the media, Athey is now out of the limelight, happy showing Dulwich College’s boys the enjoyment to be had from cricket,. It’s in the college’s never-ending grounds, in south London, that he takes SPIN back to the start.
A natural sportsman, Athey was almost lost to football, playing for Middlesbrough FC’s Juniors in 1974/75, in an era when Ayresome Park was home to some of football’s biggest names. “I was over the moon when I was offered apprenticeship terms. Football was my first love,” he says. He says he can’t remember now why he turned down Boro’s offer, but he does recall some of the players. “Graeme Souness was a pro when I was one of the juniors. He was a tough cookie. We didn’t see much of the manager Jack Charlton; he dealt mainly with the first team. Craig Johnston [mop-haired Aussie who made it big at Liverpool] was there at the same time as me; he was a bit younger. I saw him by chance in the street in London recently and we chatted.”
Born in 1957, Athey played for Teeside County Schools under-16s aged 12 and progressed to Yorkshire Colts in 1974. He toured West Indies with England under-19s in 1976, the year of his Yorkshire debut.
“I played instead of Geoff Boycott, against Northants, who had Sarfraz Nawaz, Bob Cottam, Bishen Bedi and Peter Willey – big players. At Yorkshire, I learned from watching Boycott. Sometimes he was not as helpful as he could have been to young players, but technically he was very astute.”
He left the county and its many internal ructions at the end of the 1983 season. “There was trouble around Boycott, the reform group, demonstrations and legal arguments. I’d just had enough and didn’t want to play in that atmosphere.”
He considered joining several counties, choosing Gloucestershire because of an affinity with its set-up and David Graveney’s captaincy. Thus began an enduring friendship with his best mate in cricket, Jack Russell. “We roomed together for all my time at Gloucestershire. Some said nobody else would room with him and nobody else would room with me!”
The pair became known for their passing on the partying and for knuckling down. It worked – Athey enjoyed his greatest success when based in the west country. He had played for England once in 1980, but was on a sticky wicket when given another chance 18 months later. “I was sent out to the West Indies in 1981 when Brian Rose had to return with an eye problem. I batted No 3 in two Tests and having to face their attack was not great for establishing myself. I didn’t feature again for another five years.”
By the mid ’80s Athey’s application had led to a recall, his dedication rewarded with both triumph and disaster. He opened all five Tests of the 1986/7 Ashes series in Australia, playing his part in England returning victorious 2-1. Athey was happy to celebrate when the time came and feels sympathy for the current England captain, snapped in the tabloids after celebrating the series win over the Windies. “We had a bloody good time! Botham said it was the highlight of his career – it was a great place to be and a great team to beat. All this fuss about Michael Vaughan falling asleep after a few drinks after winning a series. People can’t question you when you are doing well. Are we winning? If you get the job done to everyone’s satisfaction, go and relax mate.”
The summer of 1987 saw his only Test ton, against Pakistan. “We got to Lord’s on the Wednesday and the ground was under water. We thought we wouldn’t play but started only 30 minutes late on the Thursday. I was batting with Gatting who only got 10, so despite facing Abdul Qadir, Wasim Akram and Imran Khan it was obviously my day.”
Athey’s good fortune continued until the final of that November’s World Cup, when England faced Australia before 70,000 in Calcutta. “The final was fantastic. We should have won, really. You don’t get the whole story from the statistics. Gatts’ reverse sweep, for example – there are moments that change a game and that was one of them. They were struggling and brought on Border to bowl as a last resort. First ball, Gatts was out. We were comfortable at the time but that changed things. It was my most disappointing day in cricket, and it may be the same for the other boys too.”
Two years later, Athey was captain at Gloucestershire, finally departing Nevil Road in 1993 for Sussex. His 25,000th first-class run came in an unbeaten century against Somerset in 1997. Retiring at that season’s end, just shy of his 40th birthday, he joined Worcestershire as coach, making a solitary one-day appearance before leaving New Road at the end of the 2000 season.
After playing for Suffolk in the minor counties and Paignton in the Devon League, he wrote to several schools with the aim of “earning a couple of bob… I had spoken to lads who had made the move and they said it was a good thing to get into. Dulwich offered me the chance to coach football and cricket, and I now coach cricket, rugby and football, am resident tutor of Old Blew House and work on the development of the grounds.”
Athey speaks proudly of Dulwich old boys like Shackleton (the explorer), PG Wodehouse and Bank of England supremo Eddie George. He likes it here. But asked to summarise a career that included Ashes victory and a World Cup final in three words, he answers, after some thought, “Not quite enough.”
