New headstone is a fitting tribute to the ultimate all-rounder (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

New headstone is a fitting tribute to the ultimate all-rounder

9:25am Thursday 1st May 2008 in Sport

Very few men are rewarded with a new headstone 52 years after their burial and even fewer would have a service dedicating that edifice attended by senior clergy and an entire MCC team, in addition to famous cricketers, administrators and writers.

That was the honour accorded to the late Charles Burgess Fry in the churchyard of his alma mater, Repton School, on Tuesday.

Until this week the resting place of his ashes had been marked by a simple slate slab on the ground.

Thanks to the persistence of his two grandsons, Jonathan and Charles, aided by Derbyshire committee member Edward Wilkinson, that slate has been incorporated into a headstone paying tribute to the ultimate all rounder'.

Fry was an outstanding batsman, the first to score six hundreds in successive first-class innings and one of only 11 who have scored 30,000 runs or more at an average exceeding 50.

He represented Oxford University, Sussex, London County, Hampshire and the Europeans in India, as well as gaining 26 caps for England, including six as captain.

He also played soccer for England and appeared in an FA Cup Final. At Oxford he gained first-class honours in Classical Moderations despite winning blues for football, athletics and cricket. Remarkably he also shared the world long jump record of 23 feet 60 inches for 21 years.

A complete catalogue of the full range of his accomplishments would fill several columns.

Besides being an exceptional multi-talented sportsman, he was a prolific and outstanding writer, a cricket commentator (whom Brian Johnston remembers leaping over a four-foot wall at the age of 74), and a fine coach.

Fry even represented India at the League of Nations and was short-listed for the throne of Albania.

n C.B.Fry would have been impressed by Alex Senneck's all-round display for Wiltshire at Devizes Sports Club last Sunday, when he followed his 23-ball innings of 28 by dismissing four of the top five Cornish batsmen in an unbroken 10-over spell.

An Army signals captain serving at Corsham, Senneck's brace of straight-driven sixes took the hosts to a respectable total of 187 after they had been put in on a slow, low pitch.

They had also to replace two key injured players at the eleventh hour. The patient Mike Coles (52 off 90 balls), was rewarded with the game's only half century.

Commendably fielding eight players born within the county, Cornwall never recovered from Senneck's new ball assault of 10-3-28-4.

Liam Dawson's magical varieties of left-arm spin brought him two key wickets, before Adam Miles (18) crowned an impressive display of glovework with a slick stumping to complete a 42-run victory just as the long predicted rain began to fall.

Wiltshire 187 (49.1 overs) (M.S.Coles 52, O.L.Smith 29, A.Senneck 28; K.J.Snell 4-61, W.M.George 2-11). Cornwall 145 (42 overs) (C.A.Hunkin 38; A Senneck 4-28, L.A.Dawson 2-13).