Colin Mc Cool - Personality and Personal Life

Personality and Personal Life

Accounts of McCool in his Somerset period portray him as a thoughtful but slightly aloof character. "Off the field he was a quiet man," wrote David Foot. He was "a contemplative pipe-smoker in the corner of the dressing room," says another account, and somewhat intolerant of others who appeared less committed than he was. "Occasionally some of the younger pros didn't relish the way he treated them. Maybe they also resented that his salary was well in excess of their own."

Alan Gibson wrote about him more volubly: "He thought about the game a lot. Many Australian cricketers do, more than English cricketers probably, but McCool was in some ways an untypical Australian. He had a diffidence and gentleness, which do not always spring to mind as familiar Australian qualities: but he had plenty of Australian determination."

Gibson wrote that McCool "did not quite come to terms with the West Country". He went on: "He missed the sunshine. 'There's no winter,' he said, 'and the beer's better. And the f------ off-spinners don't turn.' I think an additional reason was that he found some difficulty in accepting the conventions of English cricket as it was then. There was a Somerset committee member, who liked and admired him, and would greet him with, 'Morning, McCool'. That committee member was seeking to be courteous. He would have thought it pompous to say 'Mr McCool', and impertinent to say 'Colin'. But it infuriated Colin. He thought it a reflection on his status. He would have preferred something like 'Hi, Col, you old bastard.' The worlds were too far apart."

McCool was given a testimonial season by Somerset in 1959 after just three years with county and the circumstances were unusual enough for it to be remarked on in the county's Year Book, published in the winter before the season. "Although Colin McCool has played for the County for three seasons only, this Testimonial is a fitting reward for his valuable services as an all-rounder and off the field, where his influence is most marked."

After retirement from first-class cricket at the end of the 1960 season in England, McCool returned to Australia, taking up market gardening with a specialty in rare blooms at Umina Beach on the Central Coast of New South Wales. He continued playing club cricket in the Newcastle competition for Belmont until rheumatism forced him to retire from all forms of cricket aged 55: "Rheumatism in my right hand made it embarrassing for me to continue. It was alarming to an old pro like me who prided himself on length and directions to have the ball slip out of my fingers out of control."

McCool was the author of two books on cricket: Cricket is a Game, which was an autobiography, and The Best Way to Play Cricket, both published in 1961. John Arlott, reviewing them in Wisden 1962, said the first was "full of trenchant good sense, humour, anecdote and shrewd observation". The second book, Arlott wrote, was "to the best of this reviewer's knowledge, the first cricket book to be initially published in the modern paper-back format". It was, he added, "full of good instruction and ... sets down some genuine cricket wisdom with freshness and vitality".

He married Dorothy Everlyn Yabsley in 1943 in Sydney. His son, Russ McCool, who was born in Taunton, played one first-class match for Somerset in 1982, in addition to playing for New South Wales Colts and New South Wales Country.